ST. LOUIS — Story Stitchers Arts Collective is one of four local charities awarded $10,000 grants by the TEGNA Foundation, last year.
Founding president Susan Colangelo said Story Stitchers uses art – including music, dance, video production, and podcasting – to attract young people and get them involved in violence prevention programs. The organization is working with about 100 young people, ages 16-25, and organizers are hoping to double that number.
Editor's Note: The video is from January 2024.
Colangelo said how the organization benefited from the $10,000 grant.
“It’s been instrumental in helping us open the center,” said Colangelo. “We put the money towards salaries for our four program staff members. This space just happened to come open and the Kranzberg Arts Foundation, the Tegna Foundation, the Lewis Prize for Music, and the Obama Foundation helped us to get this up open and lifted up.”
She said the charity pays participants a stipend for the work they produce. Colangelo said the organization also pays young people for what they call “public-facing work.” Any time a group performs, members get paid. Participants also get paid for participation in instruction seminars where they learn podcasting.
“It's either $50 or $100,” said Colangelo. “When they learn podcasting, we take a new young person through four weeks of podcast workshops. It’s about 10 hours. They develop their topic. They make new friends. They get to have mentors. They might invite a guest. They create their questions. They record and edit their podcast, and they get $100. That's in four weeks. That's fast.”
Story Stitchers has received national media attention.
“Today, it's from graduate students in education from Bank Street College of Education in New York City,” said Colangelo. “They've asked if they could come and learn about what we do.”
For the organization’s 10th anniversary, Colangelo said they are organizing a youth empowerment summit.
“We had 12 students from Howard University here for their spring bake for four days, to help us design that event,” she said.
The youth empowerment summit is tentatively scheduled for August 9, 2024.
“We are working directly with youth who are living in neighborhoods that are affected by gun violence,” said Colangelo. “Many of them have trauma from gun violence and poverty, from food insecurity, and from violence in general. They come here to create, to learn to speak out, to learn to deal with emotions and healthy creative forms of expression, like podcasting or performing.”
Colangelo said the event is free to students.
“They can join and they make friends here,” she said. “So, if you're a young person who is not doing that well in school, or maybe you are doing well in school, but you're being bullied. Things are going on in your life. If you need a safe place, maybe some new friends... this is a good place to come.”