Underserved communities are plagued with poverty, trauma, and alienation. This creates a socially toxic environment. This threatens residents’ well-being, survival, and loss of faith in the possibilities that await them. Outcomes for children who grow up in these communities include education failure, depression and other mental illnesses, poverty, incarceration, drug, and alcohol addiction and even early death. Art is a tool that has been used as a component of recovery from traumatic stress and to reassert a sense of hope, that is needed in these communities.

Executive Director: Deborah Sheppard