(By Walt Williams) You love Sonoma, love the weather, love the environment, love the wine, love the people, love the events, and love the quality of life. You moved here because you wanted to raise your kids in a blissful paradise and now you want to give back.
You have over 120 non-profit organizations to choose from but you have a limited amount of time and money. All the organizations from ARTEscape to Wilmar do incredible and vital work, providing services, enriching the community, helping people.
You base your decision about who to get involved with on two things. First, which population do you think needs your assistance? And second, what opportunity is needed for your target group and not being covered by any other organization.
You decide to focus on teens and art mostly because you know from your work of 20 years as an art teacher that art changes teenagers. Creativity is the key to life as you tell your students daily. Everything was created, glasses, cars, pens, schools, stories, non-profit organizations-all of it was once just somebody’s idea that was then developed. Steve Jobs creating the Apple Empire, The Zuck developing Facebook, Al Gore inventing the internet-all is the result of creativity plus inspiration and opportunity (and maybe in Al’s case, a little stretching of the truth).
But you know Sonoma is already thick with wonderful arts organizations: ArtEscape, Boys and Girls Club, Kenwood Arts, La Luz, Sonoma Community Center, Sonoma Theatre Alliance, Sonoma Film Society, Sonoma Museum of Art and Sonoma Valley Teen Services. All provide enriching artistic opportunities and you have worked closely with many of them but you know there is something missing.
You have been trying to establish an art school on the SVHS campus since you started teaching. Eight years ago you approached then superintendent Barbara Young with an idea about an art school similar to the Artquest program on the Santa Rosa High School campus. You were excited, she was excited, you got busy, she got busy, she retired and since you have no follow through, the program went nowhere. Local academic focus then turned to No Child Left Behind and “A through G” requirements and art took a backseat. But you kept the idea in a little folder on your desk to be resurrected at some future time.
Then one day you were talking about dreams with a friend who happens to own Sonoma Old School skate shop. Robert Wilson loves to create stuff and he showed you a prospectus about a program called SMAART (Supplying Multiple Art and Activity Resources for Teens) that he was creating with Karen Stern and Krissy Marcus. Catchy acronym and as you read you realized that it overlapped much of what you wanted to accomplish in an art school.
“Dedicated to providing a location and means for creative minded middle and high-school students to develop their talents in an after-school supportive learning environment. SMAART will provide a wide range of training in artistic disciplines designed to give all interested teens the resources and support to prepare for a career and/or further study in the art field of their choice. SMAART’s goal is to provide affordable instruction and support courses in the arts and supply resources for after school continuing education programs in the arts.” (SMAART 2014)
The program will include Dance, Music, Photography, Film and Video and Visual Arts all located in a facility behind Sonoma Old School Skate shop.
“A kind of tech clubhouse and after-school program where students can continue their artistic interests in a supportive environment.” According to Rob. Excited and inspired again, you jumped on the SMAART train (A terrible play on words which will be explained below).
A year later you are in front of Burgers and Vine wearing a SMAART t-shirt and manning an informational table. You have been talking about and planning the program to death but finally, the 501c3 application is done and the decision was made to get the program out. JM Berry created a super slick website, Scott Summers designed amazing promotional materials and you and the SMAART team are talking up any and all who are interested.
“Is this the intelligence station?”
“Do you have to do with the trains?”
“Is this about my smart meter?”
“Are you part of South Bay Rapid Transit?”
You realize the acronym might take some time to catch on. There is a time in conversation with people when trepidation turns to excitement. When, “I don’t understand what this guy is talking about.” turns to, “Wow I get it and I like what this guy’s talking about.” It’s the a-ha moment that you look for in your students, a validation of their understanding.
You talk with many students, one who is especially excited to assist and use her connections in the tech world to help with promotion. The Twitter clubhouse might be an odd name for the building but if someone is willing to fund startup costs, you could live with it.
SMAART will be fluid in what it offers students, based purely on student-centered interests. You know from your success with a unit on code writing that tech will play a major role. There is a new gold rush happening in San Francisco and no reason students shouldn’t be involved.
After lots of explaining, your team is confident in the evening’s success. Your support base is growing; your “SMAART friends” list now includes business owners, musicians, teachers, students and a variety of community characters. Creating a non-profit is one thing but funding is really what is important. You contemplated working with another non-profit but what you are offering is different. You want to create more for teens, more opportunity, more choices, more programs.
The bottom line financial need is 101K for startup and first year funding. This includes the cost of a rental portable on site and the equipment and program costs. You know this is a big number but really not that big when compared to the budgets of other non-profits. The journey will have bumps but life is about growth and creating something out of nothing.
You know you’ve made the smart decision.
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