Making Exact Change
How U.S. arts-based programs have made a significant and sustained impact on their communities
By William Cleveland

• Table of Contents
• Part One: Introduction
• Part Two: Case Studies
• Part Three: Findings
• Part Four: Recommendations

Part Two: Case Studies

Village of Arts and Humanities

Detail of Village of Arts and Humanties mural project.
Photo courtesy of Village of Arts and Humanities

Basic Facts

Snapshot

I’ve known this stretch of Alder Street in North Philadelphia for many years, here where it branches off of Germantown Avenue with a little dogleg that wraps around the original building of the Village of Arts and Humanities. This is now the Education Building, which will be filled with neighborhood kids taking Ione Nash’s African dance class this afternoon; the building adorned with a three-story mural inspired by Egyptian and even more ancient African art; the building that faces the first community sculpture garden, from which many others have come. Alder Street today functions much as it has for years. It is a busy walkway, too narrow for cars, host to all-day chess games, jazz pumped out of Saladin Williams’ window (where he’s hung an oversized portrait of Elijah Mohammad), and a crew of local guys putting up a cinder-block front on a house that Lily Yeh tells me will soon be home to a crafts industry.

That crew, those plans, that’s the difference, and that’s what sets the Village of Arts and Humanities apart from most community arts programs. The people living on Alder and the immediate streets nearby are, for the most part, the same ones who’ve been here for decades. They are creative, community-minded people held back by the urban dogs of substandard housing, drug use, lack of vocational training and political disenfranchisement. Yet they are changing their lives by working with a group of artists whose vision extends beyond the artwork, and even beyond the artistic process, to encompass the complex fabric of community. Folks need to express themselves, but that alone is not enough. The brilliance of the Village of the Arts and Humanities is its ability and willingness to seek the resources to provide jobs, to teach and counsel, to provide housing and good food, and, in doing so, to connect people one to another.

—Gil Ott[1]

Description

History

The Village of Arts and Humanities is a community-based arts, education and neighborhood development organization, located in inner-city North Philadelphia. The program began on a single abandoned block in Philadelphia where youth and adults worked together to turn a garbage-strewn vacant lot into a park that incorporated art and greenery. As the program grew, members renovated an abandoned three-story warehouse next to the park for use as its main facility.

Responding to a lack of activities for youth, the Village added after-school arts and education programs in this new facility. Programs and activities continued to expand to address community needs, growing to include theater productions, festivals, economic-development initiatives, community health programs, publications, outreach activities, community meetings and housing construction.

A 2005 planning document titled “Who Are We/Who Do We Want Become” describes the Village as both a place and a way of life.

The Village of Arts and Humanities exists in a place that Arthur Hall named the Ile Ife Cultural Arts Center. Ile Ife Park was the first park that Lily Yeh, the Village’s founder created and in the Yoruba (Nigeria) cosmology (which in the African Diaspora became Santeria, Condomble and good old-fashioned southern Hoodoo), Ile Ife is the birthplace of humanity. Very much like the image of the phoenix that envelops the mural in Ile Ife Park, the Village of Arts and Humanities is in the midst of a rebirth that will enable it to rise from the ashes, and to soar again – stronger, wiser, and once again prosperous.

We are a unique, innovative multifaceted arts organization, world renown for our methodology in community building through the arts and our pursuit of artistic excellence. We are deeply grounded in the artistic, cultural and political heritage and struggle of the African American community in which we reside, while also fostering a new multiculturalism that embraces the gifts and challenges all cultures and people face.[2]

Mission/Values

The Village’s mission is to build community through innovative arts-based programs in education, land transformation, construction and economic development. In all of its projects and activities, the Village seeks to do justice to the humanity of people who live in inner-city North Philadelphia and similar urban situations. Founder Lily Yeh describes the Village of Arts and Humanities as “using the arts as the ‘bone structure’…building an urban community where members care for each other and are interconnected.” In all of its projects and activities, the Village seeks to respect the humanity of the people who live in inner-city North Philadelphia and similar urban situations.

Success and Change

Goals

Through arts-based programs and activities, the organization works with residents to reclaim abandoned space and rebuild a sense of hope and possibility in their neighborhoods. Critical areas of program focus include:

• The stimulation of economic development
• Improved heath and healthcare
• Improved education

Defining Success

Devon, age 6, and Jacinta, age 8, decorate washcloths and aprons with poetic chants that teach them and their families about preventing lead poisoning. Life-size puppets parade around a group of seniors discussing cancer screening in a program called Conquering Cancer Creatively.

—Gil Ott[3]

• Health Issues: The Village studies barriers to good health in the community and works with Temple University’s School of Nursing and the Philadelphia Department of Public Health to provide art-based workshops to children and adults. Puppet shows, photography exhibits and hands-on activities such as painting, silk-screening and rap and drill teams have become effective ways to teach people about nutrition, exercise, HIV/AIDS, heart disease, breast cancer and diabetes. A community advisory working group, “teach the teacher” workshops and numerous outreach activities with local organizations, residents and health providers further expand the reach of the Village’s Hands-on-Health Program.
  
  
• Education: Responding to the needs of children and teens in North Philadelphia for safe, positive, challenging activities, the Village has developed a multifaceted, hands-on educational program to engage and nurture youth, to increase their connections to positive peer and adult role models, and to build their skills, confidence and sense of their own growing potential.
  
  
• The Learning through the Arts program includes four interconnected parts: Core Leadership, Open Workshops, Outreach and Youth Theater. Through this multitiered approach, the Village provides several levels of involvement — from one-time workshops to a five-day-a-week commitment — allowing young people ages 13 to 18 to take part in the Village in the way that suits them best. In 2000, more than 2,500 youth participated in Learning through the Arts.
  
  
• Economic Development: The Village has launched a variety of income-producing activities that develop the economic capacity of both community members and the organization. Through its programs and projects, the Village is able to provide numerous training and employment opportunities in arts and trades-related fields to local teens and adults. For example, Jamile, age 13, and Erin, age 14, were eager participants during the creation of the Village Eagle Youth Park. Jamile learned about tile making and Erin practiced his building skills as they worked alongside the Village construction crew and the Philadelphia Eagles football team to construct the park.

Critical to Success

The Village uses art as its inspiration and foundation. Art, in this context, means creativity in thinking, methodology and implementation, as well as the visual and performing arts. Children create images, sculpture and poetry that become crafts, murals and performances. Teens express themselves through dance and theater that they perform throughout the country. Adults build sculpture parks, plant vegetable gardens and organize community health events. In 2000, over 400 volunteers and interns contributed more than 10,000 hours of their time working with Village staff and community to revitalize the physical surroundings and support the artistic and education programs.

Art at the Village also leads emblematically. As it has tried to address the food, housing and even social needs described by its residents, the project has necessarily expanded geographically. Yeh located services and accessed utilities for squatters in the area. She has acquired title to abandoned houses for renovation and vacant lots for community gardens and more beautiful, tiled parks. As a result, the Village enjoys a substantial amount of locally controlled public space, something rare in a city of private and police-patrolled malls and parks. These pocket parks are also strategic; they are cast out to the geographic and psychic peripheries of the Village, an artistic signal to the neighbors that its borders are expanding. Yeh says, “Living art includes ritual. This is missing in modern life. Art draws people in, then they become involved to better their lives and the community.”

—Gil Ott[4]

Outcomes

The program’s evaluation efforts have focused on the collection of documentary material such as news accounts, photos and videos of the various projects. The critical mass of projects provides a striking physical testimony to the efficacy of the work. Dozens of blocks of blighted abandoned property have been reclaimed as beautifying park and recreational space. The organization considers the high level of community participation and ownership of Village initiatives to be the most significant indicator of success. Specific program outcomes include:

• Since 1986, the Village has renovated six abandoned properties and transformed more than 150 parcels of vacant land into parks, gardens, green spaces and a tree farm.
• The Village has also worked with tens of thousands of people to teach them how to renovate abandoned properties, rebuild the environment, conduct experiential training, create jobs and create festivals, theater, exhibitions and publications.
• The program offers a wide range of after-school and summer arts classes for youth, including modern, jazz, African and Caribbean dance; theater; painting and drawing; ceramics and photography; African-American history and world culture; and an after-school tutorial program.
• Village partnerships and consulting services now span the globe from the United States to Italy, Kenya, the Ivory Coast, the Republic of Georgia, China and beyond.

Nuts and Bolts

Environment

The specific geographic area the Village serves is approximately one square mile. It is bordered by Broad Street on the west, by Allegheny Avenue on the north, by 5th Street on the east and by Diamond Street on the south. These boundaries include Census Tracts 164, 165, 166, 174 and 175. According to Year 2000 U.S. Census data, nearly 19,000 residents live in the target area. The median age of the population is 30 years. Nearly 60 percent of residents are African American and the remaining 40 percent of the population consists largely of Puerto Rican and immigrant Latin American families. Nearly 47 percent of residents rate their health as fair to poor – compared to only 25 percent of all Philadelphians ranking themselves in the same category. The median household income is about $14,500 and 64 percent of children in the area live in female-headed households. Among households with children, 86 percent fall below the poverty line. Twenty-two percent of local housing units are currently vacant. About 25 percent of the population is officially categorized as unemployed – compared to only 7.6 percent of Philadelphia’s total population. Only one-third of adults over the age of 25 hold a high-school diploma and less than 10 percent have a post-secondary degree.

Leadership

In “Who Are We/Who Do We Want Become,” the Village planners talked about leadership this way:

We understand that each of us is a product of a system that often does not support the simultaneous, but often paradoxical understanding of cultural similarities and differences. In our work we know that ALL people suffer because of their existence within a system that does not promote the prosperity and creativity of every person extant upon the planet, and therefore strive to make our work accessible to all, while paying close attention to the residents within our Shared Prosperity corridor.

While much of the Village’s work is with people who have been labeled as at-risk, underprivileged, impoverished, undereducated, and stressed, we also understand, … that all of the work that we create through our artistic, environmental and community building programs are water drawn from the well of the people. The teacher, the sensei, the instructor, the baba are therefore engaged in as much learning as the student. Rather then offering people what they do not know, the Village fosters the inherent creativity present within every human being. In the end, we ardently work, through continuous staff, board and community dialogues and trainings to dismantle racism, privilege and oppression, and understand how this unholy trilogy works to destroy communities and our ability to work together as a collective human family.

The Village endeavors to create programs that support people of all backgrounds regardless of race, culture, religion, education, socioeconomic background, gender, sexual orientation, age, or ablelism. Much like the wounded shaman who is capable of making journeys to the underworld because their spirit was once disconnected, we are engaged in work that transmutes negative energy into positive expression, with the goal of promoting a more just and sane world. We advocate dialogue, rather than monologue in our artistic expression, and continually engage our program participants and the residents of our community in the evaluation and improvement of our programs.[5]

Resources

Finance: Current annual budget (2005) is $1,313,054. The Village’s organizational budget has grown significantly over the past several years, from $465,250 in fiscal year 1997. Percentage increase per year: 43 percent from 1997 to 1998, 15 percent from 1998 to 1999, 37 percent from 1999 to 2000, 21 percent from 2000 to 2001, 2 percent from 2001 to 2002.

Development: Fiscal year 2001 (Sept. 2000 - August 2001) funding breakdown: foundations 72 percent, corporate grants nine percent, government 11 percent, individuals three percent, program income five percent.

Governance

Board of Directors

• The board consists of 25-30 members maintaining a mix of 51 percent community participation.
• The board is actively engaged in fundraising and through direct means and assistance by FY 2008 plans to raise 35 percent of the annual operating budget.
• The Village holds training sessions on existing programs for new and current trustees.
• The Board is engaged in ongoing board training and development with other organizations.
• Board responsibilities are clearly delineated and a board handbook is created and distributed.
• The board is engaged in ongoing diversity and antiracism training.

Partnerships

In the immediate neighborhood:

John F. Hartranft Community School
Fairhill Community Center
Philadelphia Parent Child Center
Neighborhood Action Bureau
Salvation Army
Acme Wire Products
Narcotics Anonymous Groups
Germantown Business Association

In North Philadelphia (selected list):

Taller Puertorriqueño
Norris Square Neighborhood
Stetson Middle School
Elverson Middle School
McKinley Elementary School
The Church of the Advocate
Project HOME
All in the Family Group Association
Associacion de Puertorriqueños en Marcha
Daniel Boone School

Philadelphia and surrounding region:

AmeriCorps
Clay Studio Painted Bride Art Center
Philadelphia HeadStart
Temple Health Connection
Salvation Army
WHYY TV12
Philadelphia Green of the Pa. Horticultural Society
St. Gabriel’s Hall
Philadelphia Museum of Art
Philadelphia Department of Public Health
Philadelphia Health Management Corporation
Philadelphia Public Housing Authority

Colleges and universities:

Moore College of Art
Cabrini College
Temple Schools of Health, Social Work, and Nursing
Bryn Mawr College
Haverford College
Swarthmore College
University of Pennsylvania
University of the Arts

Training

Each project incorporates project or task-specific training. Many of the various initiatives that have been undertaken by artists and community members have included a significant degree of “on the job” training. When she was the directing the program, Lily Yeh described herself as an expert learner.

Constraints

Some of the projects initiated by the Village have not been completed or have not fulfilled their goals. These “unsuccessful” efforts were seen by Yeh as “the price of doing business in a community that has struggled for its survival for decades.” She described the pattern of her work as “three steps forward and two steps back.” The organization’s planning and program design anticipates the multiple obstacles and challenges that are inherent to grassroots community-development work. She felt that the strength of the organization is that it has learned from and incorporated the lessons garnered from these so-called “mistakes.”

Other constraints comprise the typical list of challenges faced by poor and developing communities. These include:

• A lack of access to funding for basic community infrastructure
• A lack of access and influence with local government
• A transient population
• High incidence of crime
• Poor schools
• A lack of accessible green space

Advice to Funders

• Make community ownership and participation a key criterion for support for community-based efforts.
• Provide long-term funding (three to five years) that allows recipients the flexibility to change course based on wisdom and experience garnered over time.
• When funds are limited, spread support out over time.
• Don’t penalize grantees for being honest about their difficulties and mistakes so that we can all learn from them.

[Next: Case Study: Wing Luke Asian Museum]  [Table of Contents]

Notes

1. Ott, Gil, "Sharing the Future: Philadelphia, The Village of Arts and Humanities" (High Performance magazine #68, Winter 1994)
2. "Who Are We/Who Do We Want Become" (Village of Arts and Humanities, 2005)
3. Ott, “Sharing the Future”
4. Ibid.
5. “Who Are We...”