Grantee Database
CREATIVE NETWERK
Grant Year
2025-26
Grant Program
Arts and Youth
Award Amount
$18,000.00
Project Description
With support from California Arts Council, Creative Netwerk will expand equitable access to culturally-relevant weekly Hip-Hop and Street Dance, DJ, and Wellness education programming for 2,500+ underserved youth, ages 5-18, majority Latinx and African American, across Northern Santa Barbara County. Benefiting from Creative Netwerk’s professional development seminars and mentorship by nationally-recognized master teaching artists, 10 local teaching artists will expand programs at Lompoc Unified schools, launch new artist residencies at elementary and middle schools, and provide weekly arts learning and healing for system-affected youth at Santa Maria Juvenile Hall and local community centers. Programming integrates social-emotional learning, cultural identity, and career readiness, and culminates in youth-led performances, battles, and family engagement activities, serving 3,000 audiences. With trained, culturally-competent teaching artists, this project creates long-term infrastructure for healing-centered, high-impact arts learning.
Organization Summary
In Santa Barbara County, Creative Netwerk partners with Goleta USD, Carpinteria USD, Lompoc USD, and Santa Barbara USD, offering hip-hop, street/club dance, and DJ programs, and curricula connecting regional dance styles to wellness and family engagement, in after school weekly classes and events.
CN provides access to Winter, Spring Break, and Summer Dance Camps, in partnership with A-OK and United Way, leading to performances and family dance celebrations with live music by DJs. CN currently reaches 3,500 K-12 students/year across Santa Barbara County in Lompoc, Santa Barbara, Carpinteria, Goleta, Santa Maria, Santa Ynez, Buellton, Guadalupe, Isla Vista.
CN partners with Title I public schools, affordable housing, juvenile justice facilities and CBOs, finding solutions to learning loss, isolation, and trauma through dance culture, music, and community. CN’s diverse arts leaders deepen collaboration and unification of the many regional street dance forms across California. DJs, teaching artists, and community partners expand access to free, life-changing learning, dance cultural development, and family engagement events.
Community partners include: United Way Fun in the Sun, One Community Bridge Project, the Theater Program at La Cumbre MS, the Dance Program at Santa Barbara HS, Santa Barbara City Parks and Recreation, Santa Maria Juvenile Hall, Notes For Notes, and more.
At the Boys & Girls Club of Downtown Santa Barbara, CN teaches four days/week youth and teen Hip-Hop, Breaking, DJ, and Folklorico classes, weekly open sessions, and a monthly family class.
With Lompoc HS, CN provides weekly after school programs and 20 week-long artist residency programs, sharing foundation, history, culture, and training in dance, DJing, event production, photography, videography, MCing, Music Production.
In LA, CN partners with After-School All-Stars, the ICEF Drama Club, ISANA, Boys & Girls Clubs, Glendale Unified, and the Arc to serve 1,000 students/year, including education in regional dances such as Clowning and Krump.
Organization
Creative Netwerk
Address
PO BOX 22960
Santa Barbara
93121
County
Santa Barbara
Region
Central Coast
Phone
(413) 404-6505
Congressional District
California's 24th Congressional District
State Assembly District
District 37
State Senate District
District 21
