For the past 11 years, the Cultural Center of Cape Cod has served youth at risk through high quality, skills-based, student-driven activities – in both group and one-on-one mentoring situations – at no cost to the participants. This critically important component of the Center’s educational programming is mission-driven, reactive to the community, and collaborative in the best sense.
Working with many partners in the social services, criminal justice system, educational system and arts community, the Cultural Center has provided hundreds of the region’s most vulnerable young people with opportunities to express themselves, acquire skills, build intergenerational relationships, enhance and extend their education, and focus on healthy alternatives to the destructive behaviors that threaten their productivity and wellbeing.
The addition of an Education Wing in 2015 – complete with several specialty studios requested in a comprehensive survey of students across the region – has enabled the Center to expand its scope of service and provide incredibly appropriate resources to those who need them most.
Rise and Shine engages youth in the visual, performing, literary, and culinary arts, in both group activities and, increasingly, one-on-one mentoring, during and/or after school hours, including weekends and vacations. It also provides exhibition and performance space at the Cultural Center or other venues so students can share their work with an audience.
As participants become increasingly engaged in the arts and the wider community, their confidence rises and they become eager to develop their skills and present their work. These students are, consequently, more likely to stay in school, find gainful employment, engage in lifelong learning and creative expression, and lead productive lives.
In order to reach at-risk youth and provide an alternative to substance abuse and other destructive behavior, Rise and Shine works with schools and their Alternative Learning Programs, The Dennis-Yarmouth WAVE Program, RFK Children’s Action Corps, Children’s Study Home, Angel House, Kennedy Donovan Center, FHR Depot TAY Program, the District Attorney’s office (Youth Diversion Program), Family Resource Center, Family Continuity, the Justice Resource Center, and others.
Once a participant has been introduced to the program, s/he is likely to stay involved. In fact, one of the most successful aspects of Rise and Shine is its retention rate: many participants attend group-related sessions repeatedly but also continue on their own during weekends and vacations, sometimes for several years.
In the past 18 months, Rise and Shine has provided 726 workshops/mentor sessions consisting of over 1500 impact hours for teenagers from across the region.
Examples of Rise and Shine Projects
Monomoy Regional High School Alternative Learning Program is a dropout prevention program which serves students from Harwich and Chatham as well as school-choice kids from several towns including Yarmouth. These students often face significant challenges in their lives, ranging from substance issues to anxiety to other factors that have led them to find very little success in the traditional classroom setting. The Rise and Shine program provides these students with a variety of experiences including visual art workshops that result in exhibits, woodturning in which the students craft art on lathes, culinary workshops that teach the basics of working in a commercial kitchen, sound engineering in our recording studio working alongside a professional engineer, digital design, creative writing, and so much more. While students gain valuable 21st century career skills such as collaboration, problem-solving, and critical thinking, they also experience greatly increased self-esteem derived from completing projects that many of them would never have had the opportunity to try without Rise and Shine.
The Dennis Yarmouth Regional High School Wave Program is a group of substantially separate special education students with mild to severe disabilities, ranging in ages from 14-21 years old. The students worked with Tara Murphy from African Drum & Dance, gaining comfort, sensory fulfillment, and cultural awareness through the music. These participants have reaped tremendous benefits through the Rise & Shine program. Outcomes include an increase in self-esteem, communication, and social skills, as well as the transfer and generalization of skills taught within the classroom setting.
The Night Owl Recording Studio Internship Program is growing larger and larger each year. Throughout the past three years, Rise and Shine has engaged interns from Dennis Yarmouth Regional, Barnstable, and Mashpee High Schools. Each intern studies with our sound engineer, Jay Sheehan, to become certified on the equipment in our space and therefore able to use it independently. When the certification is complete, the student can focus on a project that will complement their curriculum at school. A few of our interns have created a digital sound portfolio and used that as part of their college application process. They were successful in getting accepted and have since gone on to study sound engineering in college. When they come back home, they continue creating in the studio, collaborating with their peers and working as paid professionals.
Rise and Shine has been funded by many generous donors, including the Cape Cod Five Foundation, the Eastern Bank Foundation, several Local Cultural Councils, the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod, the Kelley Foundation, the Pappas Foundation, the John K. and Thirza F. Davenport Foundation, the MA Charitable Mechanics Association, the Cape and Islands United Way, Educational Foundation of Dennis-Yarmouth, Inc., the Cape Cod Foundation, the Joan Bentinck-Smith Charitable Foundation, and others. But the Cultural Center also hosts exhibits and events that produce revenue for such programs, including the Art on Two Wheels exhibit of rare Harley-Davidson motorcycles, on display in all five of the Center’s main galleries through November 24.
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