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We did it again! The Phoenix Rising youth empowerment program has been named
one of the top 50 youth arts organizations in the country by the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities! For more information, click here.
It's been more than 25 years since our founder Catherine O'Neill Thorn began promoting a largely undervalued art in Colorado, and it is a joy to see poetry as a now widely respected art form in our community. And for more than a decade, Art from Ashes has used imagery, metaphor and story to empower a largely undervalued population. In those 11 years, 9,000 youth have participated in AfA's Phoenix Rising program, and now will be introduced to three NEW programs.
The Phoenix Rising, Drawing on Air, Casting Shadows and the upcoming Wingspan programs give young people more than the powerful tools of expression through the creative arts, and connection through performance, but also transformation: an awareness that you can create a different story about reality which can actually affect your reality. And we've seen it proven out in thousands of young lives, and in the lives of the hundreds of adults who have taken our workshops. Many young people (who are now a little bit older people) have returned to thank us years later for the difference our program made in their lives. Thank you to all of our donors, funders, volunteers and partners over the years for making this change possible.
For more information on our Adult programs, click here. For more information on our upcoming events, stay tuned as we post them on our events page and send out invitations! We have Youth Rising On Broadway on July 19; our annual Rockies Game featuring Star Wars Bobbleheads and parade on August 22; a Mad Hatter Tea Party on August 27; and Running of the Gays, hittin' the streets in heels for LGBTQ youth on September 27th!
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New Creative Genius On the Crew!
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 At the end of January, our beloved Director of Programs who had been with the agency for three and a half years, Jessica Fitzgerald, said goodbye to pursue a career in direct care. Even though we understand that another important part of our mission is to hire and train young people to pursue their dreams, it is always sad to see them go... even fully equipped for their future (which is kind of the point)! 
Eight months ago, 23-year-old
Ashley Cornelius (photo left) came from El Pomar as a part-time extern, driving up from Colorado Springs twice a week to learn about our programs and train to facilitate. Since then, Ashley has completed her training as a workshop faciilitator, represented the agency as a youth poet, and has developed the skills required to manage the Phoenix Rising program, including our expansion into rural communities. Welcome Ashley!
 We are also going to be rolling out at least one of our three new programs this year. Drawing on Air is being developed by Courtney Chandler, our new Program Manager. This program helps our youth discover the power of their creativity and the importance of non-verbal narrative through visual art. Look for more information, later this year, on this exciting addition to our program offerings!
Click here for more information on Drawing on Air.
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Shoutout from Catherine
Now that 2014 is a wrap (hey, it takes a while to finish up all the financials, agency records and nonprofit annual report!), it's finally time to let you know what we're doing THIS year! Not only do we have a wonderful team in place, but we've made some significant adjustments to our strategic plan, as well.
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In April, the staff, board and I held our annual retreat at beautiful Columbine Ranch over Kenosha Pass. We made great progress this year, adding some exciting ideas to the strategic plan and celebrating a successful finish to 2014.
We are immensely proud of the transformational work we did last year. To give you just a taste, we served a total of 1066 unduplicated youth in 2014, up an amazing 44.4% over the number of youth served in 2013! We are one of a handful of agencies using surveys and statistics to document our successes, which is why we have been designated one of the top 50 youth arts organizations in the country by the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. You'll see in our 2014 evaluations data that our work truly does impact the youth in multiple and even unexpected positive ways, which is our whole reason for being.
I particularly want to extend a special "thank you" to our new funder the Colorado Office of Children, Youth & Families for the support we are receiving from the Tony Grampsas Youth Services program. The TGYS grant has allowed AfA to provide youth empowerment workshops through our out-of-school, drop-in wordshop, and to support workshops at Compassion Road Academy.
I can't wait to see everyone at our events this year. Our community of supporters are absolutely critical to our work, and I am so grateful to each of you for helping us do what we love most: reach young people with the message of their creative genius!
All the best,
Catherine
Check out our 2014 Annual Report here
Check out our 2014 Evaluation Results here
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Your tax-deductible donations* have helped us provide creative empowerment workshops to more than 9,000 youth!
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Contact Us
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Art from Ashes
303.837.1550
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3-Minute Poem
Frozen
by Esther, 19
@ Emily Griffith
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It was hard recycling amongst screams
but my freezing body knew nothing more
but to call this hectic environment home
And every now and then amongst the chaos
my mind
would cave in on itself
From this moment on
I realized
That this world spares no one
Even the echoes of my parents' voices
scream at each other
It's like fingerprints in my memory that I carry to every person I meet
I present myself with bows and giftwrap to hide my infant understanding of love My parent's actions have permanent markered all over my memory
But I know the pain of being forgotten of being ignored and covered up
I know love is not screaming atop of mountains
unable to hear each other
I know love is tender and kind
I am nothing and I am everything
I am all my scar tissue and all the information it holds
I am a brighter clay
The greener grass
Yes I am my parent's screams and my father's soul drowning at the end of a bottle
But also I am my own laughter
I am star gazing on rooftops I am the pedestals that hold you closer to the light
The clutch used as a spare foot
I am pain and loss
I am remembrance and love, lungs and hearts Morning eyes and inseparable hands
I am not what has happened to me
I am what I choose
to make of it
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New Emails!
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Because of spammers, we had to make some agency-wide email changes.
Catherine O'Neill Thorn, Executive Director
director@artfromashes.org
Sandy Della Ripa,
Director of Operations
admin@artfromashes.org
Ashley Cornelius,
Director of Programs
programs@artfromashes.org
Courtney Chandler,
Program Manager
manager@artfromashes.org
Other agency emails remain the same:
info@artfromashes.org
volunteer@artfromashes.org
events@artfromashes.org
phoenixrising@artfromashes.org
board@artfromashes.org
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The proof is in the statistical pudding (doesn't that sound yummy?)
As a member of the Colorado Alliance for Creative Youth, Art from Ashes uses the National Research Center's Youth Outcomes Toolkit to measure the impact of our programs in the lives of young people.
Our pre and post-surveys feature 50 questions that assess several domains of youth development, including youth engagement in the arts, academic achievement, life skills, and more. Preliminary results from our 2014 survey not only demonstrate positive change in all areas of inquiry, but statistically significant change in more than half of all survey responses--the best results we have ever reported.
Young people who participate in an average of 10 workshops are more likely to report that they try harder in school, that they can express themselves through poetry, that they feel important to their communities, that they are good at setting goals, that they stay out of trouble, and that they feel good about themselves.
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Goodbye, dear Jessie.
Trying to make sense of a senseless act of violence is a futile process. But at the end of February, we had to deal with the loss of one of our youth participants, 17-year-old Jessie Hernandez. Her death would be difficult to deal with under any circumstances, but the violence with which she was killed made the grief even harder to bear.
For those of you who haven't heard about the tragedy, you can read about it here. For those of you who want to hear the voice of this young heart that was cut short before having a chance to grow, we've posted some of Jessie's poetry here...
We mourn Jessie. And will continue to give other youth facing challenges the opportunity to share their stories, connect with the community, and rise above negative circumstances and experiences through the power of art and creativity.
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Copyright © 20XX. All Rights Reserved.
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