3/17/2020

 

Dear Colleagues and Supporters, 

 

Thank you so much for your impact and support in the Bay Area. We are reaching out to you today to ask for your help keeping Hip Hop For Change afloat in the coming months. We’re not going to sugarcoat it--the spread of COVID-19 has hit us hard. With school closures, HH4C’s school contracts have been suspended and our teaching artists are now out of work. Our grassroots activities, from which HH4C generates the majority of its income, has also been halted, instantly cutting short HH4C’s cash flow. In addition, scheduled events and sponsorships have been canceled. 

 

However, HH4C believes that it is more important than ever that we continue to uplift our community even through the worst of times. In 2013, HH4C’s Executive Director, Khafre Jay, recognized the lack of space and resources for youth and artists to express their inner emotional turmoil caused by socio-economic inequality and struggle. With the belief that art can empower and educate his community, Mr. Jay decided to create his own nonprofit. Since then, HH4C has used grassroots activism to educate people about socio-economic injustices and advocate solutions through Hip Hop culture. By combining creative opportunities with economic power and community development, HH4C combats the displacement of people of color in the Bay Area. Over the past seven years, HH4C has:

 

• Engaged 22,000 low-income students in culturally-competent arts education

• Delivered programming to over 100 educational institutions

• Employed over 800 local community members 

• Hosted 65+ community arts events that engaged over 25,000 audience members to increase awareness of issues facing low-income minority communities such as environmental justice and gender equity. Our artistic and industry partners include Earth Amplified, Sac Roc, Ryan Nicole, Hieroglyphics, Kev Choice, Green Peace, the Sierra Club, San Francisco City College’s Women, and Gender Studies Department, Girls Inc, DeYoung Museum, and the Asian Arts Museum. 

• Facilitated knowledge dissemination about pressing social issues in the Bay Area to over 250,000 community members through grassroots activism and engagement

 

As you know, HH4C is 93% funded by direct public support from people like you. We are reaching out to our greater community for additional help at this trying time. HH4C is one of the few remaining POC-led arts and education organizations in the Bay Area, founded and operated by locals. Our staff and board live and work within the communities we serve. No other organization carries out a three-pronged mission to empower, educate, and uplift the local Bay Area POC community through art, knowledge dissemination, and community-building. Examples of our impactful programming include:

 

• The MC Arts Education and Youth Empowerment Program: Our program is designed to connect low-income youth of color into the arts, music, and creative industry, and provides students with an open road to learning, creation, and expression that scaffold their education and assist in integrating academics and arts. Most of the youth we work with have not seen their communities and cultures reflected in traditional academic material. THE MC’s Hip Hop pedagogy connects students’ interests and lifestyle to curriculum content, inviting students to engage with education through a medium they are familiar with. Our program springboards students into creative writing, cultural history, logic and reasoning, spatial and corporeal awareness, and inter and intrapersonal intelligence. Beyond the classroom, our experiential, culturally-relevant arts training program helps to create a counter-narrative to that of mainstream corporately promoted radio rap and Hip Hop music. In 2012, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Center conducted a study showing that 30% of Oakland youth suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. 90% of the students from The MC come from oppressed Bay Area families who do not have the funds to pay for therapy. The survival of expressive arts in our schools is a powerful intervention for our youth today.

​

• HH4C’S Annual Women’s Empowerment Summit: a showcase of Bay Area female artistic and intellectual talent that focused on the accomplishments and everyday struggle women of color face. The event engages a cross-section of POC Bay Area youth in a culturally-relevant learning environment that addresses issues of gender equity and provides a platform to connect our target communities with partners who empower and advocate Womxn daily. Through music, art, and education, HH4C engages the local public in the history and future of gender equity in the Bay Area, increases awareness of the cultural legacy of Bay Area female artists and thinkers, fosters critical thinking around pressing gender equity issues among the Bay Area general public and connects aspiring POC artists, activists, and intellectuals with arts and community development professionals.

​

• Agents of Change: In partnership with East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD) and with initial support from the California Arts Council, HH4C curates summer camps for Black and Brown adolescents who rarely experience nature. Together, HH4C and EBRPD designed a program for naturalists and Hip Hop educators to provide full-day learning workshops consisting of the five elements of Hip Hop and the correlation of each element with nature. 

 

With your support, HH4C can:

 

• Provide our existing staff and teaching artists with the paid time off they desperately need to ensure their own safety as well as the well-being of their families

• Facilitate live streaming arts and education programming

• Keep HH4C’s day-to-day operations afloat

 

Support us and keep our work using the link at the top of this page and thank you for your time and attention.

​

Sincerely,

 

Khafre Jay

Executive Director