Local nonprofit Urbano Project has received a grant of $100,000 from the Cummings Foundation’s ‘$100K for 100’ program.
The Urbano Project is located at the Brewery Complex in Egleston Square, and is one of 100 local nonprofits chosen from a total of 597 applicants to receive a Cummings Foundation $100K for 100 grant, including fellow Jamaica Plain nonprofit Boston Scores.
Urbano Project is a non-profit community art studio that fosters public and participatory art as a vehicle for personal transformation, community cohesion and social change. Bringing together professional artists, local youth, and community members to learn and experiment through place-based projects, the organization promotes the model of the artist as citizen, actively engaged in conversations with our community through the lens of contemporary art. Urbano supports youth to become civically engaged artists as they are challenged to tackle current social issues in their community that directly affect their lives.
Urbano will use the funding to support its Youth Artists Projects: studio courses that explore social issues through art. Past themes include gentrification, gang violence, and the revitalization of abandoned urban spaces. Students receive cutting-edge contemporary arts and studio classes taught by practicing artists, whose specialties range across a wide spectrum of visual, performing and mixed media arts.
The nonprofit recipients of $10 million worth of grants gathered for a reception in Woburn on June 11th. Representing Urbano were Founder and Executive Artistic Director Stella Aguirre McGregor and Board Chair Todd Gershkowitz.
“This great news couldn’t have come at a better time. We are so proud to be one of ‘$100k for 100’ grant recipients. This award comes at a critical period of growth and change for us,” said McGregor.
The $100K for the program supports nonprofits that are based in and primarily serve Middlesex, Essex, and Suffolk counties. Through this place-based initiative, the Cummings Foundation aims to give back in the area where it owns commercial buildings, all of which are managed, at no cost to the Foundation, by its affiliate Cummings properties. Founded in 1970 by Bill Cummings of Winchester, the Woburn-based commercial real estate firm leases and manages 11 million square feet of space, the majority of which exclusively benefits the Foundation.
“We are indebted to the nonprofit organizations like Urbano that have a meaningful positive impact on the local communities where our colleagues and clients live and work,” said Joel Swets, Cummings Foundation's Executive Director. ”We are delighted to invest in their important programs and services.”
Visit CummingsFoundation.org for a full list of all 100 grant recipients.