OUR MISSION
THE POINT’s Arts & Advocacy Youth Development Program serves 500 students in grades 1-12 with after-school and summer activities that focus on arts and community service. Key initiatives include the After School Program, the A.C.T.I.O.N. teen leadership group, and health education efforts, all aimed at enhancing growth and improving community conditions in Hunts Point.
Arts & Advocacy Youth Development Program
This central feature of THE POINT’s services offers after-school and summer programming for 500 young people in grades 1-12. Through justice-based arts and service learning activities, THE POINT’s youth programs aim to support the academic, pre-professional, and positive social development of young people and engage them as leaders in sustainable community development.
Specific youth programs include the comprehensive After School Program (ASP) for youth 1-8th grade, teen community leadership group A.C.T.I.O.N. (Activists Coming To Inform Our Neighborhood), the peer education Mind’s Empowered Project aimed at reducing HIV/STI and teen pregnancy, and arts-in-education programs including the International Center of Photography (ICP) at THE POINT and our social circus program Cirque de Vie.
Arts & Culture
THE POINT’s Arts and Cultural Programs are dedicated to the cultivation and preservation of South Bronx culture and making the arts economically and geographically accessible to Hunts Point residents. Past programs include the multimedia project Mambo to Hip Hop and the public art project Village of Murals.
THE POINT has been the recipient of ongoing funding by the National Endowment of the Arts as well as several awards including the NYC Mayor’s Award for Arts and Culture (2007), a Place Matters Award (2008), the Women’s Caucus For Art’s President’s Art & Activism Award (2011), and most recently the Lincoln Center Cultural Innovation Grant (2017).
Community Development
THE POINT uses the lens of environmental justice, youth development, and arts and culture to engage individuals from Hunts Point in the effort to create a more livable community and generate economic opportunity. Core projects include THE POINT’s Campus for Arts and the Environment and initiatives such as the South Bronx Greenway, the South Bronx Community Resiliency Agenda Lab, and the Free Hunts Point Wi-fi Project.
Our main campus also serves as the home for small businesses including TATS CRU Mural Company, Bascom Catering, and the Syllable Cooperative.