We need YOUR help to transform lives through art-making

This has been a hard year for everyone - and the children and communities we serve are no exception. COVID disproportionately affects many if the community serves. Unemployment, access to public services, education and more have been pushed to the limits. Thanks to YOUR support, we didn’t let COVID-19 stop us from bringing transformative art-making to youth and their communities across Philadelphia, the U.S. and even into Europe.

And if there’s anything we learned this year, it’s that we absolutely need creativity to survive and thrive, now more than ever.

Restorative art-making could not be more important in these critical times. As BuildaBridge co-founder Dr. Vivian Nix-Early said in her self-care video produced this summer for caregivers, “Creativity is the opposite of hopelessness.”

That’s why, as 2020 draws to a close, I am personally asking you to send back a tax-deductible year-end gift to support our annual fund. Your donation will immediately be put to work harnessing the indispensable power of the arts to foster resilient and hopeful futures for our youth, their families, and communities.

You may know that we’re a small operation, but we don’t let that stop us from making a lasting difference in the lives of those we serve. With just one full time staff member - and an incredibly talented team of creative arts therapists, musicians, dancers, actors, visual artists and more - we work tirelessly to transform the lives of our participants through the power of art-making

These are just a few ways that we’ve infused imagination, creativity, healing, and joy into the lives of children and communities around the world:

• Partnering with the Asociación Puertorriqueños en Marcha (APM), BuildaBridge Restorative Teaching Artists provided arts-based leadership and civic-engagement based programming for LatinX youth in and around North Philadelphia neighborhoods.
• The Salvation Army invited BuildaBridge to facilitate an online program for survivors of sex-trafficking.
• As the summer drew to a close, Covenant House hosted a BuildaBridge songwriting program for youth experiencing housing insecurity.
• And most recently, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Regional Task Force sponsored BuildaBridge to deliver 12 arts-based self-care workshops to human service providers experiencing vicarious trauma as a result of their efforts during the Covid-19 pandemic. As a result, roughly 300 frontline responders and caregivers will benefit from the self-care workshops.

When COVID-19 forced our communities into lockdowns, we opened our arms virtually to facilitate art-making workshops for the general public. The pervasive stress and trauma of this year have affected our world in so many ways, and we recognized the necessity to provide creative outlets in the face of great adversity and hardship.

The response to these new programs was a profound source of comfort to the many people who joined us - and represents great potential in terms of how many people we can reach in the years to come. You and I both know that there is so much more we can do, because when it comes to creativity and the arts, the opportunities are always unlimited. And we are counting on you to bring those opportunities to life.

So please, invest in our mission to provide “the good life” through the work of transformative art-making with your year-end gift today. Your support of our annual fund will help people to find their voice and their potential, changing their paths for a lifetime.

As trauma expert Dr. Bessel van der Kolk has said, “Imagination gives us the opportunity to envision new possibilities - it is an essential launchpad for making our hopes come true.”

We hope that you and your family have been weathering these tumultuous times with grace, resilience and hopeful visions of the future. On behalf of the staff, board, and artists of the BuildaBridge family, thank you for making BuildaBridge a priority.