Café Cultura 1029 Santa Fe Dr Denver, CO 80204 (720) 394-6589 info@cafecultura.org
Double Your Donation! Café Cultura Supporter, Great news! Your support has made a tremendous difference in the lives of the youth with whom we work. To demonstrate this, we have a few stories to share with you (see below). Since you and other community members have supported our work in the community, we can receive a matching grant from the Latino Community Foundation of Colorado and Hispanics in Philanthropy. As such, you have the opportunity to invest in our work by doubling your end-of-year donation. It’s easy! For example, if you donate $25, your total contribution will be $50. Now for the stories: I met Lulu on the first day of our intensive spoken word workshop series at STRIVE Prep SMART HS. Her strength and intelligence immediately caught my attention. Over the course of 1 ½ years, she has participated in every part of our organization’s programs. At the age of 14, Lulu became the youngest poet we have featured at our open mic. In addition to performing during our annual Xpress Yourself workshops participant showcase, she also participated in our first Words to Actions Youth Leadership Program. As a result of her interest and passion, we recently welcomed Lulu as a member of the Café Cultura Collective, offering her an opportunity to be involved in planning and carrying out our programs. That has included representing our organization in performances at the University of Colorado at Boulder and the reception at which we received the 2013 Mayor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts and Culture in Youth Arts. She has even assisted in our spoken word workshops. We look forward to her continued participation as she develops as a powerful leader in our community. We presented our one time basic spoken word workshop at the Increasing Opportunities for Nat American Students conference held at Metropolitan State University of Denver. One 15 year old youth made a particular impression on us (we’ll call her Jennifer). Although she expressed incredible intelligence and maturity in her participation, the short poem Jennifer wrote revealed pain and struggle. When I praised her work and mentioned the opportunity to share it for those in attendance, she adamantly refused. We gave the participants a few minutes to finish their poem. At that point, we opened it up for volunteers to read. Jennifer’s hand shot up with enthusiasm. After sharing, she received a copy of our book (Café Cultura Collective Compilation). To our surprise, she returned to our workshop in a later session. Jennifer continued participating…and added more to her poem. Once again, she volunteered to share her story. Like the 1 st time she read, everyone showed her love. I couldn’t help but notice the change that occurred in our short time together. After hosting our open mic event at La Academia/Denver Inner City Parish for over 8 years, it felt good to finally take the next step in facilitating our intensive spoken word workshop as part of an elective at the school. As with our relationships with other schools (next page)
and organizations, the students impressed us with their critical thinking skills, creativity, and dedication. In fact, the students expressed so much interest in our work together that they have pushed us to expand our curriculum. In addition to our basic and intensive Xpress Yourself spoken word workshops, we are proud to offer an advanced series that focuses on performance and recording that will start in 2014. Your support has made these stories possible. In concrete terms, below is a brief list of our accomplishments during 2013: presented our Xpress Yourself (Basic) Spoken Word workshops for approximately 2,075 youth at 25 schools and conferences facilitated our Xpress Yourself (Intensive) Spoken Word workshop series for 230 students at 4 schools and organizations published 5 books of poetry from youth in the Denver metro area conducted our highly engaging Words to Actions Youth Leadership Program for 15 Indigenous (Native, Chicana/o, Latina/o) youth hosted an incredible Rise Up event featuring the Santa Fe Indian School Spoken Word Team and Cihuatl Ce featured 7 performers from outside of Colorado at our events received the 2013 Rosa Parks’ Diversity Community Award (from University of Colorado, Denver) and the 2013 Mayor’s Award for Excellence in Arts and Culture (visit http://youtu.be/MlOPIXk_PxQ to watch the wonderful video they produced for us) We look forward to doing much more in 2014. Your contribution would help us:
expand our monthly open mic conduct more spoken word workshops for youth publish books of poetry & art from youth participants coordinate our Words to Actions Youth Leadership Program
We need your financial support to do so. To make a difference right now, go to http://fundly.com/cafeculturagrowthfund to securely provide your tax-deductible gift of $10, $25, $50, or another amount. Donations can also be mailed to: Café Cultura 1029 Santa Fe Dr Denver, CO 80204 Tlaxokamati,
Ara Cruz Executive Director Café Cultura P.S. Your donation will be matched $1 for $1, up to $3,000 if received by December 31 st