Project Create

Project Create is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that provides opportunities for creative youth development through accessible, multidisciplinary arts education to empower young people and amplify their voices. We collaborate with children, youth and families in an inclusive and supportive community where art is healing and transformative. Our goals are to: Create Art, by providing professionally-led visual, performing and digital media arts instruction taught by experienced, engaged teaching artists in order to develop students' art skills and provide tools for creative expression, and by offering our students opportunities for public exhibition and performance in order to develop confidence; Create Opportunity, by offering after-school programming in a safe, structured environment that promotes positive youth development and learning through cultivation of skills including critical thinking and problem solving, effective communication, and leadership; and Create Community, by connecting students to their local environment through artistic and cultural experiences in their neighborhoods, and by encouraging respectful, supportive artistic collaboration among peers and teachers, in order to develop a sense of belonging, positive cultural identity, and civic engagement. By working in partnership with social service organizations that offer emergency, transitional, and long-term housing to homeless families, we deliver important services to children in D.C.'s communities of greatest need. In our 27 years as a community arts education organization, Project Create has served over 15,000 children in Washington, D.C. Through collaboration with our like-minded partners, Project Create is working to break the cycle of chronic homelessness and poverty one child at a time.