Mint will hire 30% more creative Detroit youth, to learn, earn and create more art for non-profits.
Leader
Vickie Elmer
Location
1115 Merrill Plaisance Detroit, MI 48203
Mint supports young people with summer jobs that help develop and grow essential skills while creating a wide variety of community art projects and pieces.
In its fifth year, our Summer Creative Jobs program will hire 13 young people from Detroit to paint artistic pictures on canvas, create mosaics and make other art projects. That's up 30 percent from our 2019 Summer team. Their big project is creating original paintings that Mint donates to local nonprofit organizations in our annual Paint Detroit with Generosity initiative. So your donation helps us honor 25 local nonprofits' missions and work. This year we will partner with non-profits that focus on children and youth.
Our young artists also run a free arts and crafts activity in Palmer Park, which will be open to all for eight weeks. This year, we intend to create a new public art piece- a butterfly mosaic, to go with those created previoiusly. We also may create a caterpillar.
Our summer workers learn artistic skills from teaching artists. They also become better communicators and more productive workers and learn from some of Detroit's best, most altruistic visual artists, who visit, teach and encourage them. "Best summer job ever," said Seyi Akintoroye, who worked with Mint last summer and hopes to return in 2020.
After summer is over, Mint arranges an exhibit of the Paint Detroit with Generosity paintings and invites the public and our artists to revel in their work being on display for a month. And your donation supports all this goodness and creativity, Generosity and growth.
This year, with the economic slowdown, summer jobs are more valuable and more scarce than ever. Teens face increased competition from adults for many starter jobs. Mint's program is open only to Detroit youth ages 14 to 21, so this gives them an opportunity to shine. Hiring 13 youth and developing their skills and confidence requires big commitments. And the payoff is magical.
We believe this is a win-win-win - a win for the youth who work for Mint and who boost their creativity, confidence and bank accounts. A win for the nonprofits who receive paintings through our Paint Detroit with Generosity initiative. And a win for the community, which will receive another public mosaic and free arts and crafts weekly in Palmer Park. So please back a winner and donate generously today.