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A dream come true
By Jeremy | July 23, 2007
coordinated this as a tribute to new school opportunity:
Eleven years ago, thirteen young people ages 14-22 overcame the lack of money, space, equipment, and paid staff to establish Generation Xcel, a youth center in Manhattan's Jacob Riis housing projects. We couldn't articulate it then, but over time we discovered that our experience reflected certain essential characteristics which we later described as creativity, initiative, resourcefulness, resilience, excellence, and unity. Our mission, also refined later, became empowering young people to achieve their dreams and transform their culture and communities. Then four years ago, 10 teens replicated the model and launched Xpress as a creative arts outlet for their peers.
In the years since that initial summer of 1996, we've consistently drawn 75%-80% of our students from PS & MS 34, the public elementary and middle school across Avenue D. Despite repeated attempts to formalize our relationship with the school and even establish a presence on the campus, our efforts pretty much failed beyond the fact that we shared so many students and prayed consistently for the school. Then last year, Jonathan and Dorothy joined the school's faculty. Then this past spring, the Metro New York Baptist Association awarded us, a non-Baptist ministry, a Paint-the-Town grant. And all summer, volunteers from churches throughout the country have helped beautify the building's interior.
Then this past week, six artists under the direction of legendary graffiti artist NYC Lase, immortalized everything that Xcel represents in the school's playground. Three legends including NYC Lase, Duro, and TooFly and three up-and-comers, Ramon Trevino, Lorena Barrezueta, and Kekoa collaborated on four walls and six column surfaces. The lone remaining column surface will be painted by students this fall. Collectively, every wall communicates the mission, values, and opportunities that Xcel empowers kids to realize.
Our prayers for eleven years have included becoming a meaningful presence on campus, one that supports and enhances the staff and students and reinforces their capacity to become who God created them to be. Lase and his crew took the answer to those prayers far beyond our wildest expectations.
Related
+ Adopt-a-School resources
+ Generation Xcel Fact Sheet
+ Volunteer Opportunities
Topics: abounding grace, adopt-a-school, art, chain reaction, community, duro, generation xcel, graffiti, jesus loves you new york, kekoa, lorena barrezueta, nyc lase, paint the town, photography, ramon trevino, toofly | 1 Comment »
July 27th, 2007 at 7:50 pm
Jeremy, I like the phot slides post is that a link from your flickr or someother phots poster tool? Get back to me ont that one too.