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 When I walk in from having a gloomy morning your beautifully painted cafeteria says, 'Hi Jan, smile, I'll make your day' and it does. It makes me feel like coming to work.
Jan,
cook Junior High School 258, Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn |
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I walked into the school being out for two days and the colors made me feel happy and joyful. They were bright and lively. They were just the door frames but it is like a new school.
Mike Bibbs, Custodian
Marta Valle Secondary School, Lower East Side, Manhattan |
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I love working with Publicolor because I love to paint. I also like to work with Publicolor because it gets me away from the house.
Cory Hilario, Age 13
Public School 25
Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, NY |
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Paint Club is our school-based after-school program. We enter at least 12 struggling public middle and high schools each year, where we mobilize approximately 75 students to paint all their school’s public spaces with warm, vibrant colors. Dreary, depressing hallways and stairwells are transformed into bright, welcoming and energized spaces, where students and teachers feel safe: minds free of fear are minds open to meaningful learning.
Paint Club participants:
- Learn the highly marketable skill of commercial painting, which itself can help break the cycle of poverty.
- Learn transferable skills- how to communicate, how to organize time, how to work in team, how to budget, how to take initiative, how to be a leader.
- Paint alongside corporate and community volunteers on Saturdays, who inspire students by speaking about their jobs and the education required to do them.
- Have the opportunity to experience frequent, consistent success, thereby building self-confidence and self-esteem.
- Develop pride and in their schools and in themselves.
Publicolored schools experience:
- A decrease in graffiti and vandalism.
- Calmer student behavior in painted spaces.
- School unity that cuts across grade levels and backgrounds.
- The formation of a new and engaged school community.
Uniquely, 100% of our students’ work impacts 100% of the school community
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 My favorite thing in the COLOR Club is painting because it brings out the leader in me.
Maurice Brown, Age 16
University Neighborhood High School
Lower Manhattan, NY |
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I learn professional skills that enable me to apply for other positions. I also learn to be responsible for my actions.
Matthew Butler, Age 15
Public School 263
Brownsville, NY |
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The COLOR Club (Community Of Leaders Organizing Revitalization) is our school-to-work apprenticeship program for 60+ targeted Paint Club graduates in grades 7-10. Building on the Paint Club experience, the goal of the COLOR Club is to help students invest in themselves and prepare for a productive future by developing life, work, academic and leadership skills.
COLOR Club includes:
- Weekly 1:1 curriculum-based tutoring under the guidance of an academic advisor.
- Weekly Life skills/career exposure workshops.
- Weekly Saturday painting/community building projects at schools and community facilities such as health clinics, homeless shelters and police precincts.
- Extra homework help sessions.
- Bi-monthly “hour of power” roundtables, where students address educational challenges through group problem solving, further supplemented the curriculum.
- Monthly Grand Workshops designed to help forge a strong community between the COLOR Club and Next Steps programs, and encourage parental support of their child’s interest in college.
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Next Steps is our career/college prep program for 50+ high school juniors and seniors, college students, and students in a transitional year after high school. Next Steps helps our students fully realize the transformative impact of Publicolor as they progress into adulthood.
Next Steps includes:
- 1:1 guidance to help each student identify career goals and the steps required to achieve them.
- Weekly career/college prep workshops
- Weekly saturday painting/community building projects at schools and community facilities such as health clinics, homeless shelters and police precincts (students earn stipends for this work)
- Weekly 1:1 curriculum-based tutoring under the guidance of an academic advisor.
- Assistance with college/financial aid applications.
- Job/internship placement assistance.
- Two multi-college campus tours each year.
- A scholarship fund to fill gaps in college financial aid packages.
- A college mentorship program to ensure that all our college students overcome pressures to drop-out, and successfully graduate.
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Fresh Coat
Twelve to fifteen select Next Steps students gain invaluable work experience through Fresh Coat, our semi-professional painting crew. Fresh Coat touches up previously Publicolored schools and sites, extending the impact of our colors and overall school design to thousands more students and teachers every year. The crew performs work for hire in museums, galleries, and other not-for-profits (they serve as the professional painting crew of the Museum for African Art).
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Next Steps Prep
Responding to our observation that too many students are graduating high school functionally illiterate, we initiated Next Steps Prep, our summer academic enrichment program. Next Steps Prep combines morning literacy immersion and SAT prep classes with afternoon community revitalization projects. 50+ students participate in the program, held in and centered around a different New York City neighborhood each year.
Next Steps Prep includes:
- Literacy immersion classes, following Publicolor’s custom designed multimedia curriculum.
- SAT prep classes.
- Lunchtimes anti-violence and anger management workshops
- Painting/community building projects at community facilities such as health clinics, homeless shelters, and community centers.
- Fridays cultural enrichment activities.
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