Happy Holidays from New Urban Arts

New Urban Arts wishes you and your families a happy and healthy holiday season. Thanks to you, we had a great year and look forward to the new year. Here are some highlights:

* Click here to download our 2007-08 Program Evaluation Report and learn about the impact of our Youth Mentorship Program

• Be inspired by young people who describe the program's positive influence. Michael Moretti, alumni student and artist mentor says, "Some people say that home is where you hang your hat. If that is true, my home is a little place called New Urban Arts and that is where I grew up. To some people its just bricks and windows that sit on the corner of an inner city street, but to me it is the most warm and inviting place I know."

• Understand better our studio community through a detailed analysis of student demographics, along with information on our registration, retention and participation rates. For example, Over 300 high school students registered for our arts mentoring program. Our student enrollment doubled in the past 2 years. On average we received nearly 40 new applications each month. 52% of students returned to participate in our programs for their second, third or fourth year.

• Learn about the generosity of our artist mentors who volunteered over 4,000 hours to mentor our students in the visual and literary arts, building powerful mentoring relationships. 42% of our artist mentors this year were male. 50% of the artist mentors returned for a second or third year.

• Discover why 88% of our students strongly agreed that New Urban Arts is a safe and supportive environment (and the remainder agreed); 97% strongly agreed or agreed that they had developed more confidence through participating in New Urban Arts during the past year; 97% strongly agreed or agreed that they had built strong, trusting relationships with their peers and artist mentor; 93% strongly agreed or agreed that they had improved as artists.

* Thank You to The Rhode Island Foundation and The Champlin Foundations for Their Generous Support of Our Programs

• The Rhode Island Foundation awarded New Urban Arts a $30,000 Strategy grant to support our Arts Mentoring Fellows Program. This program enhances the professional development of our artist mentors . This grant was made possible by The Richard and Vera Gierke Family Fund of The Rhode Island Foundation.
  
  
• The Champlin Foundations awarded New Urban Arts a $19,900 grant to develop a new digital audio and video computer lab.
  

* A Celebration of New Urban Arts Students and Artist Mentors

• Artist Mentor Ben Fino-Radin served on Craft Hackers, a panel discussion highlighting artists who use crafting techniques to explore high-tech culture and the relationship between needlework and computer programming at the New Museum, New York City on Friday December 12th. "Ben's witty needlepoint sculptures translate the World Wide Web into yarn and plastic, one pixel at a time."
  
  
• Alumnus Ricky Cantor's poem E 9th Street was recently published in A Mind Apart, Poems of Melancholy, Madness, and Addiction poetry anthology edited by Mark S. Bauer, Director, Harvard South Shore Psychiatry Residency Training Program and published by Oxford University Press . Ricky's poem was initially published in Thinking Hurts, A Collection of Poetry by Young Writers At New Urban Arts, 2005. Congratulations Ricky. We are so proud of you.
  
  
• Mark your calendar for January 30, 2009, the opening exhibition of Mid Year Makings: An Art Exhibition of new work by New Urban Arts students.