Programs

In 2021 we started our Spring Break camp onsite at Assemble, but moved it online when a staff member fell temporarily ill with an unrelated illness. We stayed online until our 2021 in-person summer camps, when we began to understand the emotional impact that teaching during a public health emergency was having on our staff. To protect our team from burnout, we realized we needed more teachers per program than we did in 2019—a lesson that has since influenced our strategic plan and our ongoing approach to staffing.

Despite the challenges, we Assembled with 471 more youth in 2021 than in 2020. We served 44% more youth at off-site programs, and we increased our distribution of Make-and-Takes by 35%. Onsite program attendance remained consistent with 2020, decreasing by a slight 3%.

Onsite programming was all about flexibility in 2021. While we restarted in-person programming for many on-site programs in the fall, we continued offering virtual options to serve as many folks as possible.

The new normal of the pandemic often requires twice the work to serve half the people. While we served about the same number of youth in 2021 onsite programs as we did in 2020, the hours of that programming grew by 50% from 2020 numbers (and 12% from 2019 numbers!). This is the result of increased virtual programming that often ran concurrently with in-person programs. Despite these challenges, we served 460 youth in on-site programming throughout the year, and we continue to make an impact in our Penn Ave. space.

We kept up our after school programming and Saturday Crafternoons through the year, remaining predominantly virtual until the summer and then returning to in-person in the fall. After school programs ran for first through sixth graders, Monday through Thursday, and included Girls Maker Night, explorations of quilting and batiking, diorama and shadow box construction, slime making, and much more. Saturday Crafternoons featured new guest expert artists, makers, and technologists who led youths aged 5-11 through a different hands-on project each week.

Summer campers had both in-person and online options in 2021. By limiting summer camp registration to 10 youths per camp and following COVID guidelines developed by our board, we safely supported hands-on summer learning for over 70 youth.

In the fall, our Hack the Future, Youth Maker Night, and 21+ programs returned for the first time since the pandemic. Hack the Future guides students in grades 9-12 through projects like journal making, drum machines, and glass blowing, introducing them to cutting edge technologies and untold histories in a social justice framework. During Youth Maker Nights, experts guide students in grade 5-8 in hands-on STEAM projects.

During Unblurred, the monthly arts crawl on Penn Avenue in Garfield, Assemble hosted a series of gallery exhibitions designed to act as a springboard for emerging artists’ careers. Samira Mendoza, who coordinated the 2021 shows, celebrated Assemble’s tenth year by welcoming back past Unblurred artists alongside up-and-coming Garfield artists in their first gallery shows. Among returning artists was Derrel Kinsel from Boom Concepts, whose February 2021 show “Nothing But Love” featured a community-curated Love Jams playlist. Emerging artists included Khadijat Yussuff, now an Assemble coordinator and teacher, and Gladstone Butler, whose Unblurred show helped secure his entry into Columbia University’s MFA program.

In 2021, Assemble received funding for the pilot of a brand-new program called the Ramp Up Fellowship. The pilot program—which runs from January through August 2022—was funded by The Arts Equity Reimagined Collective Action Grant and a Remake Learning Moonshot Grant. It is a deep local investment with national implications.

In January 2022, Assemble and The Legacy Arts Project partnered to launch the inaugural Ramp Up Fellowship for individuals ages 18-24 who are interested in becoming teaching artists. The fellowship prioritizes young adults who identify as BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and who reside or grew up in the Homewood and Garfield neighborhoods of Pittsburgh.

The Fellowship provides a platform for hands-on work experience for the fellows via co-teaching in youth-serving programs at Assemble and The Legacy Arts Project. The fellows also engage in professional development focused on skills, knowledge, and disposition. Executive Director Nina Barbuto leads sessions with the fellows that dive into learning theories and pedagogy from Paulo Friere, Dr. Bettina Love, Dr. Gholdy Muhammad, and more. The fellows are creating their own Manifestos for Learning inspired by past theorists as well as their own lived experiences. By the end of August, the fellows will have received on-the-job training as well as opportunities to lead summer camps.

Assemble is currently seeking funding for a second year of the Ramp Up Fellowship so it can continue to do the work of hiring and training the next generation of teaching artists. This collective action will foster the next generation of teaching artists to advance our missions and build opportunities for community-based arts education.