Project Create enriches the lives of children, youth and families experiencing homelessness and poverty using arts education as a tool to promote positive youth development. Our goals are to:

Create art.

Students discover their natural talents, skills and potential for achievement through professionally-led visual and performing arts courses.

Create opportunity.

We offer consistent, comfortable and safe after-school options that nurture the healthy development of skills such as problem-solving, communication and cooperation, and instill self-esteem, confidence and pride.

Create community.

Children explore and connect to their local environment through artistic & cultural experiences while developing a sense of belonging and positive identity through artistic collaboration. We promote mentoring relationships between competent, caring adults and young people in need of positive role models.

How We Do It

Project Create is a multidisciplinary arts education organization that provides free, after-school art classes and field trips to at-risk, underserved children in Washington, D.C.  Through our current partnerships with So Others Might Eat (SOME) and Community of Hope, we serve children on-site in emergency, transitional and long-term affordable housing.

Why We Do It

Washington, D.C. consistently ranks at or near the top in national measures of homelessness, poverty and hunger among children in the United States.  These traumatic experiences can inhibit the physical, emotional, cognitive, social and behavioral development of children. Art bonds children to their culture and communities and promotes positive development of skills that can help with success in school, life and work.  There may be no single solution to eliminate homelessness and poverty, but, through collaboration with our like-minded partners, Project Create is making an effort to break the cycle of chronic homelessness and poverty one child at a time.