White Water Gallery

It’s weird that we actually achieved our goal because we never really thought it would happen. When we received the first couple hundred dollars online it wasn’t looking too good and we were worried about meeting our goal or even reaching it part way. We realized how much the Nipissing District responds to things in-person and how none of our locals respond to online campaigns. Perhaps it’s because we are all becoming desensitized to them…

Then the Business for the Arts’ ArtsVest program got going and made us get out into the public and hunt down sponsorships. This was the beginning of something wonderful because we were able to meet our goals and secure funding for our fall projects! We are very thankful to COGECO for supporting us with $10,000 worth of advertising space on their broadcasting channel. We are also very thankful to MOOSE FM for giving us another $8000. We are very happy to be working with the North Bay Nipissing News of our campaign and to have received 4 full-page advertisements and multiple articles through them worth more than $8000. This is all in addition to the whopping $11,900 that we have received from the Business for the Arts ArtsVest fund.

Reaching the project’s completion we have secured $26,000 in IN-KIND support and another $12,730 in cash contributions. This funding will make it possible for the White Water Gallery to develop a strong outreach plan that will engage our youth this coming fall. We plan to host a series of artist talks and workshops all pushing forward with professional development and career growth for young and emerging artists. Thank You to everyone who made this possible and thank you to North Bay for helping us get the ball rolling.

White Water Gallery Artist-Run Centre would like to introduce you to our Youth Arts Initiative. Over the two years a group of young emerging artists have grown from doing little art projects here and there to a group of youth focusing on professional development and outreach activities of a huge scale. The Youth Arts Initiative or YAI focuses on collaborative community projects and work together to make the world a better place. They also work to better themselves by bringing in professional artists for workshops, artist-talks and help give them the skills needed to succeed in life. This is the third year that the program has been in place but the first year that we have started seeking funds to run our program.

CHECK OUT THE ONLINE CAMPAIGN

Up until now the program has been running as volunteer-only with small funds being raised by youth to cover supplies and workshop costs.  Our campaign is raising money to fund the core aspects of the YAI program and increase its capacity dramatically. This means that it will pay for space, supplies and employment to run the program year-round bringing the program to new heights. Our goal of $25,000 will create a new employment situation giving the youth group a coordinator to help run the program and create 12 new professional development workshops, artist talks and seminars that will be provided on-site and online on our website.

This is a big deal to us as it helps the existing youth have better opportunities for success in life but also will encourage and engage additional interest from new emerging artists in our region and abroad.

We have created a series of unique perks as incentives to donate to our campaign. These range from personalized postcards signed by all of our youth participants to Awards of Honour that will be given out at a big award ceremony later in the year.

The success of this project is the success of creativity in our community as this is our new generation of artists. Our community needs artistic growth of this kind and this funding will make life in our region a more beautiful, vibrant and a wonderful experience for everyone!

Get involved and spread the word! Like us out on Facebook and share our message of celebration and community through youth engagement in the arts! We are making change happen in our community, get out there and make things better for yours!