OVERVIEW

Santa Clara County’s cultural art makeup comprises many grass-root organizations, various community-based programs around art, thousands of artists, creative entrepreneurs, volunteers, and individual participants.  The problem, however, is that this ecosystem is not made accessible and does not exist to anyone who is not deeply rooted in its services and experiences.  Unlike other areas in the country that focus investment on art and poetry as a derivative of its economic contribution, Santa Clara County and specifically the Silicon Valley area lack this, as well as any advantage of longstanding investment and/or a steady supply of legacy arts donors who typically create contribute to a robust art community.

This gap is even more pronounced in poetry or poetry-related initiatives. This bleak outlook is compounded by the fact that where there is a focus on poetry, it usually reflects a more dated and euro-centric view of the art form. Additionally, the county is undergoing demographic shifts, which has uncovered an even more multiracial environment that is not adequately serviced with arts and poetry.

Arts can improve the health and well-being of our community with scientific evidence that there's an impact to improve our physical and mental health. Americans for the Arts recently reported that the arts result in a 66% improvement in individuals experiencing depression, 50% improvement in anxiety symptoms, and an 83% decrease in stress.

The Bringing the Light series is composed of events and initiatives that will harness this effect and work with youth (of all ages) to be open about their feelings and emotions over the last three years and provide them a vehicle to voice these challenges, triumphs and our loss through poetry. 

Santa Clara County has close to 500K youth 17 years old or younger; enabling and allowing them access to poetry is essential for learning how to express oneself.  In Santa Clara, we see our youth suffering under the adversity that typically comes with growing up and finding their way but now — imagine a young mind maneuvering through a global pandemic, a racial uproar that has reignited abuses and inequalities that plagued the county since the sixties, homeschooling, etc., all without adequate access to arts and more importantly, without a mechanism to express any of the feelings and angst that are outcomes of the period we are in.

This is our responsibility as adults, organizations, and the community—to acknowledge that students who participate in arts are:

● four times more likely to be recognized for academic achievement

● two times more likely to graduate college

● three times more likely to participate in a math and science fair

● five times less likely to drop out

Source: Americans for the Arts

GOALS

1. 1. Create a broader platform for youth to express and share their voice and celebrate their excellence

   2. Drive community outreach (Bring disparate communities together)

   3. Foster partnerships with local organizations that have safety, integrity, diversity, accountability as part of their core values

INITIATIVES

Bringing the Light: In Our Words | reach: @5% of K-12 students (total 14.5k)

This program would be administered through participating Santa Clara schools and libraries. Students will be asked to write poems that capture the impact the last two-three years have had on them (the COVID-19 pandemic, racial and social injustice, etc.). These poems will be submitted and selected to appear in an anthology printed and sold on demand directly and or through a partnership with Poetry Center San José. Any proceeds of the sale of books will go back into a petty cash account to fund a live anthology reading once it is safe to return to physical events.

Bringing the Light:  Words In Motion | reach: @120,000 daily riders

Selected poems will be part of the "In Our Words" in motion project, where poems/excerpts are printed up and posted on VTA trains and outdoor locations. Similar to ad placements on trains, these short poems/quotes would be carried through the counties and serve as a fantastic vehicle to engender a sense of unity, community, as well as being able to bring exposure to Poetry and VTA in all of these varied communities; all connected by the VTA. 

 “VTA is a thread that connects all of these regions.”

Bringing the Light: Installation | reach: @5% of area commuters (TBD)

Selected poems will be part of the "In Our Words" light installation presentation, where selected poems are projected on walls and building facades in various locations across the county over several days to give wider exposure to the youth as their work. The hope is that this will not only instill a sense of self-esteem in our youth but will invite the larger community to engage with and appreciate poetry through the eyes of our children.