As of Wednesday, May 18, 2022, Community Music Center of Boston received a $75,000 National Endowment for the Arts’ (NEA) Our Town Grant. We are honored to be one of the 51 nationwide recipients of the NEA’s Our Town program, supporting Creative Placemaking in partnership with cities and towns throughout the US. CMCB will work with the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture and 6 other amazing nonprofit partners in Boston to develop arts-sector youth workforce development programs throughout the city in 2022-23. We are excited to work with Dunamis, Castle of Our Skins, Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center, Center for Teen Empowerment, The Record Co., and Abilities Dance Boston for this community-wide project.
What does this funding mean for our community?
With this grant, we look forward to implementing a year-long youth development program. This program consists of approximately 25 young artists who will receive artistic instruction as well as paid employment and arts-sector workforce development training.
This year-long program is fundamentally learner-centered. Organizations will work deliberately to center young artists’ intentions, facilitate conversations where youth feel empowered to lead, and earnestly reciprocate support for their interests, goals, and preferences. When done well, youth recognize the skills and assets they already bring as well as those they wish to nurture; they set their own relevant and rigorous terms for success; they name their desired outcomes and are empowered to achieve them.
We are so excited to share more about this program in the coming months. Stay tuned for more details!
For more reading about the NEA’s Our Town Program, click here.
