Greetings of Peace,
“God’s work is being done through Elementz,” said an alumnus of Elementz who had recently returned for a visit while on a college break. After almost eight years of working with youth, I am encouraged to see our alumni in college, finding jobs, and starting to raise families of their own. When I visit with our alumni and hear about their progress, I understand that real progress is happening here and this gives me hope when I look at the new generation of youth that we are now serving.
As we come up to the end of an amazing year of growth and change here at Elementz, I am coming to you to request your financial support for this wonderful organization that represents young artists from the urban core. Read on to see why I am so enthusiastic about the work Elementz is doing.
This has been a year of expansion, innovation and risk-taking for Elementz. The most significant decision of this year was our relocating from the West End to a new location in the heart of Over-The-Rhine. With our move we are proud to say that we’ve been able to stay on course and stay connected to youth in the neighborhood, while connecting to an entirely new group of youth who commute to Elementz from other areas surrounding the inner city. Most importantly we’ve still been able to maintain the “family-like” environment that youth have known us for over the years.
With our new location we’ve also expanded our mission to become a neighborhood urban arts center that engages young people in a safe space, where they can develop skills in a variety of urban art forms. We still offer the core programs of recording arts, djing, hip hop dance, and graffiti but now we are also offering lessons in spoken word, stepping, R&B, musicianship, and video production. Our focus is to engage teens and young adults into these programs but we’ve also started teaching adult dance classes on weekends as well as day to day after-school programming in urban arts with elementary-aged children.
Part of our goal this past year was to have a more balanced number of young male and females from the urban core. Our “Beats & Rhymes” program still mainly attracts young men from the urban core giving them a positive outlet to express themselves through producing music and record songs. On the other hand one of our newest program “Generation Steppers” focuses on giving young women lessons in stepping, while developing character qualities like self-esteem, teamwork.
This year we’ve also made an intentional effort to be “thought leaders” and to help our community understand the perspective and life of the urban core. We’ve hosted a variety of workshops themed around urban issues with organizations and religious institutions like Public Allies, Temple Shalom, The League of Young Voters & the Christ Church Cathedral. Topics of these workshops have included racial profiling, getting to know your neighbor, youth leadership and civic engagement, and perspective into the lyrics of Elementz songwriters. These workshops have been meaningful experiences both for the outside community as well as our staff and youth at Elementz.
All of the good things that I’ve mentioned above have helped me maintain my passion for Elementz and the youth that we serve. Although I struggle with wanting to make more of a difference in the lives of our members, I am often reminded that one of the most important things that we are accomplishing is creating an additional support network for our youth.
One of the most important things that we are accomplishing is creating an additional support network for our youth. Through interviews and daily interaction with our members we've discovered that many of them come into Elementz with a support system that may include only one or two people. Many of our youth are dealing with issues of being nearly homeless, constantly transferring to different schools, and the big challenge of figuring out what goals to pursue in the future. However young people find in Elementz staff, board and volunteers caring people who are committed to helping them navigate through their lives.
Your contribution at this time will help us continue to make a difference in the lives of urban youth. Any contribution, large or small, will make a difference. You can mail your check, payable to "Elementz" to Elementz, 1100 Race Street, Cincinnati, OH 45202, or, to make a donation by Credit Card, visit our website www.elementz.org and click on "Donate Now."
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Abdullah Powell
“Those who are happiest are those who do the most for others.”
― Booker T. Washington,
