EPACENTER, the youth development center in East Palo Alto dedicated to amplifying the creative potential in every young person, recently launched the Creative Corps, an innovative new workforce development program.
Fueling the power of creative changemakers to help build sustainable and thriving communities, this thrilling new initiative gives work to emerging artists and offers local nonprofits exciting ways to spread the word about the important work they do. The Creative Corps functions like an advertising agency but serves nonprofits—at no cost to the organization. Nonprofits interested in having Creative Corps members serve their organization this year can apply at bit.ly/EPACENTERCreativeCorps
Through extensive public calls for applications, EPACENTER has engaged a team of professional and emerging artists who are based in East Palo Alto and have experience developing marketing and advertising materials for clients. This Creative Corps of 25 local youth artists (ages 18 to 25) and five project mentors will be responsible for producing promotional campaigns for community organizations, government agencies, and affordable housing developers over a 12-month period.
EPACENTER has long been dedicated to harnessing the power of art, design, technology, and culture to accelerate positive outcomes for vulnerable youth. Through the Creative Corps initiative, EPACENTER seeks to fuel the collective power of artists as creative changemakers to help build healthy, sustainable, and thriving communities.
The Corps will serve as a creative agency, providing free production of videos, commercials, public service announcements, audio recordings, podcasts, murals, workbooks, maps, or live performances that help spread the word about a nonprofit's mission and the work they do in the community.
In collaboration with their nonprofit partners, the Creative Corps will engage in project planning, co-designing project timelines, and utilizing a community-design process (when possible) on the creation of deliverables.Deliverables will include creative messaging, videos, commercials, PSAs, audio recordings, podcasts, murals, data visualizations, workbooks, maps, video games, performances, and other media that encourages community engagement around the South Peninsula’s most challenging issues. For nonprofits, working with the Creative Corps will be like having an advertising agency, marketing firm, and social media influencer all in one.
The Creative Corps will work with nonprofits in the fields of civic engagement, housing rights, and environmental sustainability in East Palo Alto, East Menlo Park, and North Fair Oaks in San Mateo County. They will also work with EPACENTER partners to create materials that engage local communities around issues of conservation, environmental justice, urban forestry, and equitable access to the outdoors.Finally, the Corps of creative changemakers will collaborate with community service groups, media groups, and government agencies on projects designed to solve community challenges, with a particular focus on voting and the prevention of racism, bullying, bigotry, and violence.
The EPACENTER Creative Corps is part of The Bay Area Creative Corps, launched by the San Francisco Foundation (SFF) in partnership with the California Arts Council’s (CAC) statewide pilot initiative, the California Creative Corps (CCC). SFF is one of 14 partners with the CAC across the state that are designing programs unique to the strengths and needs of their region.With a one-time $60 million investment from the State of California General Fund, the goal of the CCC is to lift up artists and cultural practitioners as a workforce that is essential to advancing equity and well-being across California. The program seeks to serve as a job creation and infrastructure development opportunity that will increase and sustain the ways creative problem-solvers are engaged in public work. The work of the CCC is focused on priority communities that are facing some of the highest barriers to accessing social goods needed to build equitable outcomes for all.
“Thanks to our partners at the California Arts Council and the San Francisco Foundation, we are able to continue our mission of increasing opportunities for youth to realize their potential and impact the world through art, design, and technology,” says EPACENTER Executive Director Nadine Rambeau. “Creativity has the power to change minds, spark movements, and shape a more just society for all. I look forward to seeing how our selected creative changemakers will reimagine how arts and culture can strengthen equitable outcomes for San Mateo County.”
Know a nonprofit that could use help getting the word out? Nonprofits interested in having Creative Corps members serve their organization this year can apply at bit.ly/EPACENTERCreativeCorps.
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