Dear Collaborator,

SafeArt is a community-based organization that engages creativity and the expressive arts as tools to support mental health and overall wellbeing. This year we’ve revitalized our programming to continue to meet our rural communities needs! We rely on your help to achieve our dreams of breaking the cycle of trauma for all Vermonters.

With your support, we hired two new incredible staff members, Johanna de Graffenreid and Robert Morgan, to expand our youth programming. Collectively Johanna and Robert bring nearly half a century of experience building inclusive, rural youth programs. Their hard work has allowed us to expand the impact of our Youth Wellbeing Project, including the start of our weekly Wednesday Youth Art & Drop-In Program.

Our youth summer Crafts & Connection Camp offered 2 full weeks of programming for young people aged 11-21. Camps quickly filled up this year with youth interested in traditional crafts like textiles, herbalism, slow food (growing & making!), printmaking, and more. These camps are not only crucial to our community due to the lack of affordable summer programming in the area, but because they are an intentional and trauma-informed space where all young people can heal and thrive.

Our dedicated Healing Arts for Adults Program staff, Misch Beck and Susan Hoffman, have built an incredibly successful program in HAICU - Healing Arts Imaginative Care Unit. HAICU is a weekly private, small group for adult femme-identified folks who have experienced trauma or are having difficulty coping with their daily lives for any number of reasons. Nearly a hundred participants have come together over a dozen years to support one another through life's challenges with creative healing programming— this can include mindfulness, yoga, movement practices, visual art projects, creative writing, dramatic expression, plant healing, meditation, journaling, music and other ways to connect us to one another.

This August we reached for the horizon and added an entirely new program— integrating both our youth and adult programming into an innovative four day, overnight Family Camp! We partnered with the Vermont Network and many of their advocacy organizations to create a space focused on providing joy, healing, and community for families that have experienced violence and harm at the intersections of incarceration, trauma, and substance use. For many, this was their first opportunity to go to a summer camp.

To continue this vital, healing work supporting rural communities, we must raise $45,000 by the end of the year. While we’re fortunate to receive funding from Mascoma Bank Foundation, Vermont Arts Council, Vermont Community Foundation, and the Couch Family Foundation, we wouldn’t be asking if your support weren’t essential for keeping these programs running.

Your donation to SafeArt helps provide equitable access to trauma-informed programs for struggling Vermonters and increases community wellness across our state.

With hope for a healing world,

Cleopatra R. Griffin 

(they/them) 

SafeArt Director