Arts Access Grants

Cambodian American Resource Agency (CARA)

Expanded Teaching Curriculum. In preparation for the 2025 commemoration of 50 years since the fall of Phnom Penh to the Khmer Rouge, CARA will provide classes in Cambodian music and dance traditions. Students will participate in performance with surviving artists from the Cambodian genocide, many of whom have not performed in many years, at a culminating event in 2025.

Cashion Cultural Legacy

Academy Expansion Pilot Project. Los Lupeños Academy will pilot Folklórico Dance classes for middle school students, older adults and K-5 educators, filling distinct needs in their community and nurturing intergenerational connections.

Children's Musical Theater San Jose

CMT Presents: Alum Rock Spring Camp, a free weeklong Spring Break camp for 80 students in partnership with the Alum Rock School District, providing a comprehensive theater training program that promises to be engaging, challenging, inspiring, and fun.

EASTSIDE Magazine

Quarterly Publication. Support for the contributors, poets, artists, and the distribution of Eastside Magazine, a quarterly publication that captures the heart of East San José by highlighting the community’s deeply rooted history, cultural vibrancy, ample assets, and considerable resources from a space of agency and community power.

Mosaic America

inCulture. Culturally responsive creative arts activities for socially isolated Vietnamese and Mandarin-speaking seniors living in low-income housing in San Jose. This project aims to address the health and wellness needs of these populations, while preserving and celebrating their cultural heritage, and enhancing their quality of life.

Palo Alto Players

Expanding Access Toward a More Inclusive Theater Experience for community members with disabilities. Addressing the challenges that community members with disabilities face when attending live theater performances, as well as breaking down the barriers that may prevent them from attending live theater at all.

Red Ladder Theatre Company

Multi-Disciplinary Workshops in the Creative Process for Foster Youth. Red Ladder Theatre Company, in partnership with Child Advocates of Silicon Valley, will provide a series of workshops in the creative process for youth in the foster system that engages and involves both the youth themselves and the Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASAs) who serve these youth. Workshops use the tools and techniques of improvisational theater to help participants develop positive life-skills.

San Jose Jazz

SJZ Progressions and Music Education Access through Live Concerts/Assemblies/Workshops. San Jose Jazz will leverage the impact of their existing Progressions music education activities by producing a series of concerts/workshops for its local students in a variety of environments including in-school performances by touring musicians, workshops for high school jazz students, as well as at least one field trip to see a professional musical production off-campus.

San Jose Multicultural Artists Guild

Crowns - A Celebration of Cultural History: Black Women and Their Crowns. The production is a celebration of Black culture, featuring hats (crowns), music, song, folktales, and stories showcasing the enriched customs and norms of a community. The project will also serve as a means to discuss "Black hair" and the importance of the CROWN Act. Student matinee will include discussion sessions and opportunities for creative expression.

San Jose Museum of Art

Free Cross-Curricular Art Courses for Title One Students. Sowing Creativity, a classroom residency program, builds student engagement and enthusiasm for cross-curricular subjects while also providing needed opportunities for creative expression that are increasingly absent in schools.

San Jose Taiko

More Taiko for Schools. Funding to increase capacity to meet the demand for Taiko programs in schools. These in-school assemblies seek to celebrate America's cultural diversity through an inspirational blend of performance and education, offering relevant representation of the ever growing local Asian population.

School of Arts and Culture at MHP

The Arts Education Program provides access to high-quality arts education for children and youth in East San José, helping them to not only learn about a craft or instrument, but also connecting them to their peers, their families, their neighborhood, and their heritage.

Teatro Visión de San José

Supporting Teatro Visión's 2024 Youth Production. In partnership with Santa Clara University’s Arts for Social Justice Department, Teatro Visión will produce two short plays: La Mariposa and Breaking Through, both adapted for the stage by Leo Cortez from the stories by Francisco Jiménez. These plays will be performed with an adult cast at Santa Clara University, providing the youth cast with professional mentorship opportunities as they prepare for their own interpretation of the plays.

AWO

Cashion Cultural Legacy

College of Adaptive Arts

Community School of Music & Arts

CreaTV San Jose

LEAD Filipino

Local Color

MACLA/Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino American

New Ballet

San Jose Jazz

San Jose Multicultural Artists Guild

San Jose Museum of Art

San Jose Taiko

School of Arts and Culture at MHP

Silicon Valley Shakespeare

Teatro Visión

Cashion Cultural Legacy
FOLKLOREADA, free community folk festivals, featuring cultural music and dance performances, food, select artisan vendors, and family activities in the outdoor plaza at the School of Arts and Culture at the Mexican Heritage Plaza. The 2022 and 2023 festivals will be recorded and subsequently streamed for the benefit of community members unable to attend in person. 

Children’s Musical Theater of San Jose (CMT)
KickstART gives students a fun, interactive, and educational onstage experience in the convenience of their school and alongside their classmates. CMT will partner with Robert Sanders Elementary School to guide their efforts to build a viable free afterschool musical theater program.

Chopsticks Alley Art
Theater for the Vietnamese  American Community. Chopsticks Alley Art will commission experienced Vietnamese American theater artist and director Vinh Nguyen to write, produce, and direct a theatrical piece adapting famous and beloved Vietnamese folktales, myths, and legends. The production will be geared towards elementary-school-aged children and their families. 

Cinequest
Cinequest Film and Creativity Festival, serving diverse audiences throughout the Bay Area and beyond through live and online programs. Through community partnership and collaboration, Cinequest will expand opportunities for program access to LGBTQ+, Latinx and underserved youth.

City Lights Theater Company and Teatro Visión
City Lights Theater Company and Teatro Visión have entered into a partnership to produce the musical Miss You Like Hell, book by Quiara Alegría Hudes, music by Erin McKeown, and lyrics by Hudes and McKeown. This production will enjoy a two-part performance run: at both CLTC's home venue in downtown San José, followed by a one-week run at the 500-seat Mexican Heritage Plaza theater adjoining San José’s Mayfair neighborhood.  

New Museum Los Gatos (NUMU)    
Reclamation: Public Art of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe, a joint project between NUMU, the Muwekma Ohlone Tribal Council, and San Jose State University, features an art exhibition about Bay Area public art projects of significance to the Tribe. It will amplify the Muwekma Ohlone Tribal Council’s efforts to gain federal recognition through educating our community about their public art initiatives in the Bay Area.           

Palo Alto Art Center
Creative Attention: Art and Community Restoration, is a multifaceted project that showcases the transformative power of the arts in our current age of anxiety. Includes a free-admission exhibition, artist residencies, virtual and onsite public programs, art therapy sessions, and a Community Day event with partners including the Mending Collective, artist Kenyatta AC Hinkle, and resident artist Marcel Pardo Ariza.

Red Ladder Theatre Company
Multi-Disciplinary Workshops in the Creative Process for Foster Youth is a series of workshops offered to youth in the foster system that engage and involve both the youth themselves and the Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASAs) who serve these youth. Designed by Red Ladder, in collaboration and consultation with Child Advocates Silicon Valley, youth are engaged in the creative process through storytelling, empathy, connection with others, and using their imagination.      

San José Chamber Orchestra
Music Housecalls is designed as a series of free string ensemble performances presented to organizations/housing situations where the residents can’t reasonably get out to experience live music in public venues. These are predominantly homeless or disabled populations, ages ranging from children through seniors and include many families. 

San Jose Jazz
The expansion of SJZ's existing Progressions Nucleos music education program includes a series of concerts/workshops for students in a variety of environments including in-school performances by touring musicians relevant to the student populations, as well as at least one field trip to see a professional musical production off-campus. Students receive free instruments and free weekly music instruction.

San Jose Multicultural Artists Guild
SJMAG will present award-winning Broadway actor Chester Gregory in We All Have A Song to Sing: The Eve of Jackie where he channels the dynamic spirit of Jackie Wilson: “Mr. Excitement,” one of the most influential artists in rock ‘n’ roll history. SJMAG will partner with Santa Clara County Alliance of Black Educators (SCCABE) and other community groups to bring both the production and lecture-demos with the writer/performer, Chester Gregory to approximately 200 students of color at Mexican Heritage Plaza in East San Jose.

San José Museum of Art
SJMA will re-launch its cross-curricular arts education program, Sowing Creativity, and offer it to elementary school students in Santa Clara County Title I schools for free in 2022-2023. Teaching Artists will work closely with the classroom teacher to create a customized curriculum drawing from a large repository of cross-curricular lessons.

San Jose Taiko
Share the Beat includes acclaimed school assembly programs for Title I schools; TaikoTown virtual education programs with videos and classroom activities; and free hands-on taiko workshops for youth in foster care, in partnership with Kinship, Adoptive, and Foster Parent Association (KAFPA). 

School of Arts and Culture at Mexican Heritage Plaza
Through participatory workshops and classes, the Arts Education 2022 Summer Camp Program will offer families an opportunity to experience arts engagement together as a means of positively connecting to each other and their community as they continue to face the economic and health challenges of the pandemic. 

Starting Arts
San Jose Elementary School Outreach Theatre will allow students from  six Title 1 elementary schools to create a production of  Aladdin Jr. Students will practice after school two days a week for twelve weeks, learning how to perform with sets, costumes, props, body mics, lighting and sound, all culminating in four performances held at the Olinder Community Center Black Box Theatre.       

The Audacity Performing Arts Project
Literacy, Art and Technology is a series of weekly one hour classroom visits designed to serve elementary and middle schools in East Side San Jose to build English-language skills for native Spanish speakers. This initial version of the program will focus on a close reading and discussion of Belinda Hernandez Arriaga’s 2020 book, “Love and Monsters in Sofia’s Life.” 

The New Ballet
New Ballet Kids and First Step Programs are interrelated dance programs that take students from elementary through high school. New Ballet Kids will bring ballet to local Title 1 elementary schools, providing access and participation to new students. First Step students who show enthusiasm for ballet training are invited to continue their dance education on full scholarship through high school. 

Tshaka Campbell and Poetry Center San Jose           
Bring the Light is composed of a series of events and initiatives that will 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. Youth will submit poems to be included in an anthology and featured as public art in collaboration with local libraries, the VTA, and community leaders.

Chopsticks Alley Art
Adventures in Contemporary Art provides opportunities for Vietnamese-American seniors to engage with contemporary art through hands-on art classes, take-home art kits and field trips to area galleries and museums.

MACLA/Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana
MACLA’s Digital Media and Culture (DMC) Studio is a free arts education, skills-building program designed to mentor underserved youth in professional multimedia production. DMC Studio serves as a second home where youth can engage in a culture of creativity and learning, build positive relationships with peers and mentors, and experience acceptance and a sense of belonging.

Opera Cultura
Rap Opera 2.0 will engage youth from San Jose Juvenile Hall and the HUB, a resource center for foster youth in San Jose, in the creation of a rap-infused opera that tells their stories. The narrative of the work will center around their experiences living in San Jose, and we will provide opportunities for the youth to be involved throughout the development and performance of the rap opera.

San Jose Children’s Discovery Museum
Educare Stories & Art (ESA) advances CDM’s partnership with Educare, located in one of the most high need communities in San Jose, through a program of literary and arts activities designed for preschool children and their families.

San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art
Sense of Self exhibition features Bay Area photographers who explore identity and selfhood through portraiture with a focus on the representation of marginalized communities. the ICA will work with the LGBTQ Youth Space to organize small group tours and talks, where the LGBTQ+ community can engage with the artists in Sense of Self to have meaningful conversations in a safe space.

San Jose Museum of Art
Free Premiere Museum Field Trips for Title One Students. SJMA’s premiere field trip offering, “Two-Part Art” engages students with an hour-long inquiry-based guided tour followed by a related hands-on art-making activity led by an SJMA teaching artist. Professional development support will assure that SJMA instructors are prepared to make impactful adjustments to their teaching strategies to assure that this approach to Museum visits is as effective for English Language Learners as it is for native English speakers.

San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles
San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles (Museum) will partner with the Social Justice Sewing Academy (SJSA), a nonprofit art program that bridges artistic expression with activism, Santa Clara Valley Quilt Association (SCVQA), and other local quilt makers to develop and pilot a year-round program for high school aged youth. The workshops, Sewing for Social Change, will provide willing and eager young leaders an opportunity to use textile art to advocate for social justice issues and topics they care about.

Silicon Valley African Film Festival (SVAFF)
The Silicon Valley African Film Festival (SVAFF) will present “Sankofa: looking back, going forward,” a two-week interactive culture preservation project that uses visual storytelling as a vehicle for connecting with and affirming heritage pride in our marginalized immigrant African youth in Santa Clara County.

The Audacity Performing Arts Project
Participatory Stagecraft and Theatre Education in Alum Rock Schools based in Alum Rocks Visual and Performing Arts (VAPA) Cluster. The creation of a 30-50 seat black box theatre and tech theatre learning space at George Middle School. The formal creation of a theatre craft after school program for elementary school students at Cureton Elementary.

The Choral Project
The Choral Project, in collaboration with the Choraliers, a collegiate ensemble from San Jose State University, will present the San Jose premiere of “Considering Matthew Shepard.” Through workshops, discussions, thematic programs and seminars produced in collaboration with local LGBTQ organizations, this project will support individuals who are navigating questions about gender identity and sexuality.