 
Until August 23, you can vote for the Art from Ashes video on the Solera Bank Facebook page and win us a $2000 grant!
|
|
Give to Art from Ashes
|  | |
Art from Ashes welcomes your financial contributions, which play an invaluable role in bringing life-changing workshops to youth.
|
|
AfA Events!
|
ANNUAL ROCKIES GAME AND FIREWORKS SHOW, SEPT 21
Tickets are FACE VALUE at $39, and a portion of each ticket goes back to AfA!
 RUNNING OF THE GAYS, SEPT 31
The third annual Running of the Gays, a three-block "marathon" in heels, takes place September 31 at 11 a.m. Funds raised through pledges support AfA programming for LGBTQ youth.
FIRST FRIDAYS
Young people ages 14 to 24 are welcome to come to Art from Ashes at 853 Inca Street for presentation workshops at 5 pm and a poetry performance at Su Teatro at 7 every First Friday. The workshops will help you get comfortable on a mic, comfortable with your poetry, and comfortable performing in front of your community.
|
|
To Our Generous
Sponsors, Thank You!
| 
|
|
Give Your Time
|
Art from Ashes is always seeking proactive, positive, like-minded individuals interested in working as volunteers to support the AfA mission. For more information, visit this LINK to fill out an application or email
and Jessica will be in touch. Thank you for your interest in AfA!
|
|
|
Greetings!We've had so much happen over the past year, that the only place we've been able to quickly update everyone was on our Facebook page! But now, thanks to a superb marketing committee made up of dedicated and skilled volunteers, it has become a team effort, led by writer and journalist Shaughnessy Conley Speirs. Of course, our website continues to hold the main content, so be sure to check that out for the balance of the information...
|
|
Letter from the Executive Director
|  This is not the letter I had written two weeks ago. After the shooting in Aurora, I realized I had to address it here. But how do you merely "mention" something that has drastically taken or changed the lives of so many? I found myself wordless. There are plenty of articles, blogs, and Facebook posts... some of them incredibly incendiary and some wise. Still, I had nothing to share that could inform the dialogue until now.
All there is... all there ever is for me after 20 years of dealing with traumatized and isolated youth, is the hope that I hold for transformation. I am reminded of Columbine, like many of us, and the years of gut-wrenching poems written by the survivors. In their poetry, they wrestled with how their friends could hate enough to kill. When the shooting at Virginia Tech happened years later, one of the Columbine survivors joined me in an interview with the BBC and spoke with compassion about the importance of finding ways to listen to each other. That's what I want to say. We can all see the disturbing correlation between silence and violence. This connection happens in such tragic and horrible events as the shootings described above, but it also happens more innocuously throughout all our lives. Each of us in our own small way can strive to listen more-to find ways to touch each other, even if it's by groping blindly through the pain and fear. As Paul Tillich said, "The first duty of love is to listen." William Stafford writes in his poem A Ritual To Read To Each Other, "the darkness around us is deep." Language creates. Language connects. And through the darkness, language reminds us of the light. |
|
GROUPON GRASSROOTS INITIATIVE HELPS FUND WORKSHOPS AT THE SPOT
| 
After nine years of programming at Urban Peak's The Spot, funding was set to run out this July. In June Groupon Grassroots offered Art from Ashes an initiative to keep the workshops going. Groupon Grassroots made AfA one of their featured nonprofits at the end of June, and with their help, AfA successfully brought in 150 individual donations for a total of $1,650, the number required to fund the five workshops that would match the donations of several generous board members. The campaign paid for ten more weekly workshops at The Spot!
If you are able to support additional workshops for homeless youth beyond mid-September please contact Laura Bond at 303.837.1550 or donate directly through GivingFirst.org
(A series of 8 workshops for up to 20 youth, with the AfA 50% in-kind donation, costs $2,500. Please see our list of other contribution provisions here.)
|
|
Feng Shui at AfA
| 
Transitions can often be difficult, as they were in 2011 as we saw several personnel changes at Art from Ashes. But true to the feng shui philosophy, those changes brought us some amazing people! AfA said goodbye to Marie Verrett, our Director of Operations in July of 2011 so she could support her family through health challenges. We are so blessed that Reid Dominie, former Executive Assistant, has filled that role this year! Thankfully, Marie has stayed on the board as one of our founding members.
Also on the board are several new members, elected earlier this year. Each board member brings a unique professional perspective to the organization's operations. L ong-term members, Ben Martin of Solera Bank, President and Treasurer; Lori Wise, IT Supervisor at Quest Diagnostics, Secretary; Marie Verrett, Vice President, Treasurer, and Founding Board Member; Amanda Prince and Prinjastin Sykes, youth representatives; Catherine O'Neill Thorn, AfA's Executive Director; welcomed Attorney Lisa Lee; Kristofer Adam Speirs, Archivist; Hilary Blair, Voice Specialist and Coach; Renee Ruderman, Associate Professor of English at MSUD; Lorraine Hull, Human Resource Specialist; Karen Jernigan, Web Designer and Founder of Project Hope and Freedom; and ambassadors/consultants Mark Bell and Richard Male, non-voting advisors.
Another significant change occurred when Lindsey Wise, Director of the Phoenix Rising program, decided to return to school for a Masters in Art Therapy! Lindsey will continue to facilitate and train other facilitators, and we are delighted to have a wonderful replacement for the position of Director: Laura Bond, experienced program director, formerly of Flobots.org, and an award-winning writer.
Lewis Lease wrote and was awarded a Service-2-Science grant, through SAMHSA, to provide he and Rissa Stiefel with contract positions as Program Evaluators! (Read SAMHSA's article about AfA here.)
We also welcome new staff members Jessica Fitzgerald, Volunteer Coordinator and Program Manager, and Kenny Storms, Executive Assistant.
And our volunteer corps is AWESOME!! Check out the OUR PEOPLE page on our website for a list and for additional information on said awesomeness.
|
|
Youth in Profile: Board of Directors Youth Representative PJ Sykes
| 
An interview with 18-year-old Prinjastin Sykes
How did you first come to Art from Ashes? Art from Ashes came to me during a workshop at the Family Crisis Center when I was going through the foster care system.
What has it been like participating in and volunteering for Art from Ashes? Volunteering with Art from Ashes has been amazing. It's beautiful volunteering at a place where you go to and everyone loves you regardless. It's been a non-stressful situation and it's beautiful helping the community in expressing themselves and transforming them into confident and respected people through Spoken Word.
Why did you decide to become a youth representative on the Board of Directors? I decided to be on the board because now I have a say in how to be more effective working with Art from Ashes and I have a voice that I want to be heard.
What do you hope to accomplish? I hope to accomplish changing one person's life, or many people's lives, like mine was changed, and make Art from Ashes not only local but global.
Excerpt from one of PJ's favorite pieces, "What She Sees in Me":
"You and me are kings and queens.
I won't buy you a fancy car or house in the hills,
'cause our love is built upon the house of God,
built upon purity and love built upon happiness and friendship...
I reach out my hand and you grab it and I feel loved when I feel this.
I know our love is ready to design and mold the life of our souls..."
What would you tell someone coming to an Art from Ashes workshop for the first time? If you don't like being loved, don't walk in that building cause you're in for it no matter who you are. If you continue to walk through those doors, next time you come back, bring a friend. There's nothing more beautiful than Art from Ashes.
LISTEN to a radio interview with Catherine and PJ on KOOL105!
|
|
Tap Into Your Right Brain At An Adult Workshop!
|  AfA's adult workshops are an excellent way to get in touch with your creative side and to use the power of words to transform your life. AfA offers a range of workshops at different levels of experience with our program. For a schedule and pricing list, follow this link to AfA's adult workshops page.
For those who have already taken the Introductory Session, the next Intermediate Session The Four Agreements, starts this Saturday, Aug. 11. CLICK HERE to pay via PayPal.
The next Introductory Session begins Tues., Aug. 14. CLICK HERE for more info.
|
|
More News, Successes, and Recognitions
|
Art from Ashes was the Daniels Fund Cause of the Month in July 2012 and was featured on three Wilks Broadcasting stations: KOOL 105, Mix 100, and 92.5 The Wolf. Listen to the interview with Catherine and PJ here. Art from Ashes received the 2012 Cherry Creek Diversity and Human Rights Award from the Cherry Creek Diversity Conference for our efforts to create a diverse and inclusive society. Art from Ashes received a national grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and we are featured on the SAMHSA website for our evidence-based program.
Our activities at the Colfax Marathon, including team sponsorships, helped us raise $2,500 to fund our programming, and Katie Wheeler was dubbed Volunteer of the Month of May for orchestrating the event. Many thanks, Katie!
|
|
Dylan Thomas Society
| 
The Dylan Thomas Society was established in 2010 by Mark Bell as an avenue for donors seeking to give with purpose. Reserved only for those generous donors committed to pledging in the amount of $1,000 or more per year (or $100/month), the Dylan Thomas Society invites members to many special events, from luncheons to private performances to pub crawls. SIXTEEN new memberships in the Dylan Thomas Society would pay for an entire year's worth of workshops for homeless youth at The Spot. |
|
 Aggregated pre/post surveys from 2011 show that of the participants surveyed, 81.9% indicated "facilitators help me to feel important" all of the time (out of three options: all of the time; most of the time; never); 30.5% of youth indicated on the pre-test that "I do well in language arts (reading/writing) classes" all of the time compared to 47.5% on the post-test; 49.2% of youth indicated on the pre-test that "I feel strongly that youth like me can be poets" 100% of the time compared to 70.3% on the post-test; 41.7% of youth indicated on the pre-test that "I take responsibility for my actions" 100% of the time compared to 63.9% on the post-test. Art from Ashes is having a daily, direct effect on the expression, connection and transformation of our young people.
Thanks for hanging in there for all of these wonderful updates. Be sure to stay in touch!
|
|
|
