A Shining Symbol

By: Allison Palm, GAAH Intern

If you have driven down Grandville Avenue lately, you may have noticed a bright and beautiful new addition to its scenery: a community mural created by teens from Grandville Avenue Arts & Humanities and the Hispanic Center of Western Michigan.

The mural, located at 912 Grandville Avenue, reflects the teens’ Latino heritage while images of the students reading symbolize their enthusiasm for education. This project was funded by the Michigan Humanities Council which supported two additional projects in tandem: a documentary capturing their creative process of designing the mural, and a skit presentation focusing on issues of racial and cultural identity.

On the evening of August 4th, friends and neighbors gathered to celebrate the mural’s completion. Attendees were all smiles as they enjoyed local food, admired the reimagined wall, and praised the artists and teens for their creativity and dedication to the commemorative project.

For years to come, the Roosevelt Park neighborhood will continue to celebrate the mural, as it is a symbol of neighborhood beautification and unity. As for the teens who created this art piece by hand, they can take pride in knowing they have touched the community in an inspiring, imaginative, and lasting way.

Daring to Dream

Alejandro (Ale) has always been a dreamer. Ale currently is a very active and enthusiastic member of the Teen Leaders in the Arts program at the Cook Arts Center. Since fifth grade Ale has been coming to the Cook Arts Center after school for classes. It has been at the Cook Arts Center that Ale has grown as an artist and a leader with dreams of making an impact on the larger community.  A long-term aspiration of his has been to attend Kendall College of Art and Design (KCAD). As a high school senior, Ale was not sure what steps to take to make his dream come to fruition.

Cook Arts Center Program Director Steffanie Rosalez recognized that Alejandro has passion and focus for attending KCAD. Over the past few months Steffanie worked closely with Kendall faculty and staff to help them see his potential and overcome any barriers that happened to be in his way.

Ale was thrilled to learn that he could be dual enrolled and able to participate in the 100 level drawing course at KCAD during his senior year of high school, and he will be receiving college credits upon completion of the class.

On a snowy January day, Ale walked a little apprehensively from Innovation Central High School to KCAD where his dream became a reality. Ale explained that being a part of a college class “made him really nervous,” but he feels so much gratitude for this opportunity. He smiled and humbly noted  that “the professor even stopped to look at my work, and she told me that she can see why I am here. It made me feel so proud.”

The professors are also working with Ale to build a strong portfolio and to create pieces that may help him secure future scholarships. His goal is to enroll at Kendall College of Art and Design as a freshman next school year. We look forward to seeing Ale's future dreams come true.

A FITTING TRIBUTE

Noemi Gonzalez, one of the Cook Arts Center’s Teen Leaders, will be awarded a special scholarship at the 2015 YWCA Tribute Awards Luncheon on November 17.  This year the Y’s selection committee was so overwhelmed with the number of high-quality nominees for the Judy Lloyd Student Leadership Award Scholarship that they created three additional scholarships in order to recognize a total of four high school students for their outstanding leadership qualities.

Noemi's leadership style at the Cook Arts Center has been crucial to building our teen program. Not only is she extremely mature, but she has the ability to think beyond herself and beyond the here and now. She's a "big picture" thinker and inspires our other teens to think critically about the big picture as well by asking relevant, thoughtful questions. Noemi’s consistent demeanor of calm and dedication helps keep the Teen Leaders’ conversations, meetings, and activities on track. If others lose focus, she gently reminds them to get back on task either verbally or by example. Noemi also leads by constantly asking questions and pursuing educational opportunities in every aspect of our programs. When she sees an opportunity to learn or to grow, she takes advantage of it. When she sees a chance to assist in making sure others have access to opportunities, she jumps on that with the same enthusiasm. 

Noemi is passionate about the need for equality in education. As a Mexican-American, she is well aware of the fifty percent high school graduation rate for Hispanics and “wishes that everyone would jump to action to make that statistic a thing of the past.” Noemi is interested in learning how government and policymaking work so that one day she can help bring about educational reform. In the meantime, she is in her senior year at Innovation Central High School (she has been on the honor roll all four years), is involved in a number of extracurricular activities, and is getting ready for college.

The future is bright for this exceptional young woman. Lead on, Noemi!

Teen Leaders Partner with GR Forward

On December 16, GAAH’s Teen Leaders in the Arts held a successful meeting in collaboration with GR Forward to engage neighborhood residents in developing a vision for Downtown and the Grand River.

Despite their previous efforts to involve the Grandville Avenue neighborhood (also known as the Roosevelt Park neighborhood) in the process, Jay Steffen, Assistant Planning Director at the City of Grand Rapids, said the turnout for the first meeting on December 2 was not what they had hoped. Our Teen Leaders saw this as an opportunity to inspire their peers, family and friends to be a part of the process.

Cook Arts Center Program Director Steffanie Rosalez, the Teen Leaders, and professionals from GR Forward collaborated to create an exciting buzz around the meeting and provide information-packed workshops and activities for residents of various ages from a variety of backgrounds. As a result, more than 120 people, including Cook Library Scholars, Achievers, students from Schools of Hope and their parents, filled the Cook Library Center that Tuesday. Library Director Sue Garza and her staff juggled people in groups throughout the packed facility, and consensus is that the event was a resounding success.

The main activity led by the teens was an invitation-making session. Children were asked to create informational flyers for their families written in both English and Spanish. To accomplish this, teens had to not only understand the purpose, scope and meaning behind the work of GR Forward, but also communicate that message to the children in order to engage them. They distributed the colorful invitations to their families in hopes that they would encourage an equal amount of participation at the next meeting on January 8. What’s more, the teens were invited to the city planning office to help shape the future conversation. This motivated them to spend many hours taking photographs, working on scripts for a WOODTV 8 story in which they were featured, writing an article for The Rapidian, and creating flyers. In this partnership, they will continue to be an integral part of the work done in the Roosevelt Park neighborhood.

During the same time as the youth workshops, an information session with the adults was led by multiple leaders from GR Forward. The meeting began with a short breakdance performance by three teens from Aerial Tactic, Antonio, Carlos, and Danny. The main material, translated by staff members Javier and Monica, touched on concepts such as attracting business, drawing talent, maximizing the asset of the Grand River, and creating jobs. The solution presented, to remove the dams to restore the river, was explained as a way to build recreational activities, improve the habitat, promote better water quality, enhance aesthetics, create economic opportunities, enrich underserved communities, and instill stewardship of the natural habitat within the citizens.

The presenter then showed a concept plan and asked for suggestions about how to connect the river with trails, create walkable streets, fix parking issues, and make the city a more livable, walkable place for all residents. Attendees were encouraged to remain involved in the conversation for the next seven months by attending public meetings, participating in surveys, and voicing their opinions. After the formal presentation, the families participated in visual activities gathering this feedback. Participants were eager to share their ideas and visions for downtown Grand Rapids.

As a result of this overwhelmingly positive experience with GR Forward, it is GAAH’s hope that the families in the Grandville Avenue neighborhood will continue to dialog about building a vision for the future of the city together. It is only with the participation of people from all parts of the city that groups like GR Forward can be sure to shape a more interconnected, inclusive, functional place for all residents to enjoy.

Meet Noemi G., Future Politician

Noemi G. is a Grandville Avenue teenager with a bright and promising future. This 16-year-old high school junior loves politics and photography and dreams of being governor one day. She participates in Calling All Colors, GAAH’s Teen Leaders in the Arts program, and was even interviewed for The Rapidian’s Elevating Voices project. When reflecting upon her passion for politics, she said that she found it “interesting how one single opinion can change a law or create something.” She said that when it comes to making changes, she would start with the education system in Grand Rapids because we could do a lot better. “No one is stepping up to that,” she said.

Noemi thinks the Cook Arts Center provides students with a safe space where ”they can be whatever they want to be without having to fit into the boxes that we call the education system.” Her recognition of the Cook Arts Center and the Cook Library Center’s work to create a place for Grandville Avenue youth is fitting in light of the recent development in the organization’s Teen Leaders in the Arts program.

After years of developing creative, safe, enriching programs for youth in Grandville Avenue neighborhood, the staff and leadership team at GAAH began to notice a lack of retention after a certain age. This issue of keeping teenagers interested was addressed by research conducted by Program Director Steffanie Rosalez. Steffanie visited The Neutral Zone in Ann Arbor, a pioneer in innovative youth programming, where she learned that the teen retention rates increase significantly if they are part of the decision-making process. She discovered that the key to retaining youth beyond elementary school is to simply ask them what they want to do and then make it possible for them do it.

The idea of autonomy became a crucial principle behind the development of this program. The program the teens helped to create included choosing an artistic discipline in which to receive private instruction, working at GAAH’s facilities to gain valuable work experience and earn real paychecks, creating and presenting materials about key neighborhood issues, planning and participating in engaging field trips to cultural institutions, and more.

Noemi’s particular choice for the arts component of the program was, of course, photography. After taking an entire summer of private lessons from a professional photographer from Bultman Studios, she is eager to utilize these skills to do a campaign of images to help promote important meetings with GR Forward in the neighborhood.

(More Story Matters pieces featuring neighborhood youth and their families can be found on The Rapidian’s website or on GAAH’s YouTube.)