A MESSAGE FROM ANDY Andrew Levin Chair & President
I am pleased to say that Creative Art Works not only survived a difficult time but we innovated and thrived. In the past year, CAW provided over 200 youth apprenticeships through remote digital art employment programs. We’ve served over 1,000 students through remote in-school and out-of-school time programs and community events, both asynchronous and in real time. We served an additional 600 youth through four community art-making events. We continued to innovate as we developed 15 new curricula that engaged young people and got them excited about learning. Finally, I’m pleased to say that members of the City Council renewed our funding for six Cultural After-School Adventure programs and one Cultural Immigrant program. This summer, we are looking forward to offering nearly 100 apprenticeships to NYC youth. These will include hybrid mural projects for New York Family Court, the North American Headquarters of Savills in midtown, and Invesco/L+M at River Crossing. We will also offer multimedia apprenticeships that will include photography, graphic design and filmmaking. In October we welcomed Amy Appleton as Program Director. Amy has assumed this critical role in our organization at a very difficult time. We recently on-boarded Fred Begley in the newly created position of Director of Finance & Administration. Previous Teaching Artist Alex Karpa has joined our staff as Program Coordinator. Our former development intern Melisa Vallovera has returned to us as a program and development Associate. We are thrilled to introduce our new board member, Angela Pennyfeather. As always, we salute the passion and commitment of our current board members, as well as our past, and the generosity of our grantors. On behalf of the Board, we are grateful for the selfless contributions of tonight’s Honorees and Benefit Co-chairs. I wish to thank Whitney Arcaro of RXR for her generous embrace of CAW and our mission while leading our fundraising under challenging circumstances. Judge Karen Lupuloff, a passionate and articulate advocate of creative youth development, is accepting the award on behalf of our program partner, New York Family Court. Finally, we are thrilled to honor our own Natajha Graham, a veteran Youth Apprentice, and recent Program Intern. For the moment, our teaching artists, staff, and program partners continue to serve kids remotely, but we are looking forward to resuming in-person programming next fall; thanks to the support of many of you, we will be here to do so. With gratitude,
Andy Levin, Board Chair & President 38
