NEW GROWTH: EmPOWERing PEACE, JUSTICE, & LOVE

Root Division’s annual Youth Education Celebration and FREE Family Arts Workshop New Growth, features hands-on family art-making activities alongside an exhibition of artwork made by students and instructors in Root Division’s free after school Youth Education Program. We are partnering with Youth Art Exchange again this year and will also be displaying work made in their visual and performing arts programming.

This family-friendly Summer of Love themed event includes complimentary refreshments, a mobile printmaking station, t-shirt tie-dying, flower crown creating, and live performances by Youth Speaks, Destiny Arts, Youth Art Exchange and San Francisco Rock Project! This event is free and open to the public with support from our fiscal sponsors, which are highlighted below.

Root Division’s Youth Education Program recruits, trains, and places our Studio Artists, volunteers and interns to teach free art classes in one of our nine partner sites, creating a link between practicing artists and the schools’ communities. All of Root Division’s programs serve a diverse group of students, most of which attend San Francisco Unified School District schools.

Root Division provides free art classes to over 800 underserved students in grades K-12 each year. Studio Artists volunteer one hour per week and choose the types of projects and media they are interested in teaching, acting as “artists-in-residence” for a semester at the partner site. Root Division assists the artists in formulating effective, age-appropriate lesson plans and project-based learning curricula while offering them guidance in working with youth. As a result, artists gain valuable experience teaching within the community, and young students are able to interact with adult mentors in the art-making process.

Root Division Partner Programs
Bessie Carmichael Elementary, Buena Vista Child Care, Cesar Chavez Elementary, Community Housing Partnership, Filipino Education Center, Horace Mann Middle School, Larkin Street Youth Services, Mission Education Center, SF International High School and Southern Exposure and Root Division’s 1:1 Teen Mentorship

Artist-Instructors
Kimberley Arteche**, Susan Birnbaum, Natasha Carlos*, Alice Combs*, Caroline Connelly, Susa Cortez*, Christina Howard, Hunter Franks*, Rea Lynn de Guzman****, Shisi Huang*, Claire R. Lynch*, Joyce Nojima*, Alejandra Perez*, Centa Schumacher*, Julia Shafer, Saree Silverman*, Sofia Sinibaldi***, Indira Urrutia***, and Xiao Wang*.

* Root Division Studio Artist
** Blau-Gold Fellow
*** Latina Teaching Artist Fellow
**** Filipina Teaching Artist Fellow