Episode 81: Youth Spirits Artworks

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Youth Spirits Artworks Programs

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“I'm actually working towards a goal and I'm not just being static” Reginald

Our featured voices in this episode are the executive director of the Youth Spirit Artworks Sally Hindman and the social media manager Reginald Gentry. We wanted to host Youth Spirits Artworks on the show because they have developed both the first tiny homes village for our unhoused youth in the east bay along with using arts and journalism skills training to provide pathways for our youths to share their voices and experiences with our region.

Sally Hindman

Sally Hindman has thirty years of management and other experience working with non-profit organizations serving homeless people. She previously directed Berkeley California’s interfaith Chaplaincy to the Homeless and set up its Telegraph Avenue drop in center for homeless youth. Sally is the co-founder of Street Spirit, the San Francisco East Bay homeless newspaper. Sally received her M.A. in Theology and Art and her M. Div. from Pacific School of Religion. She holds an undergraduate degree in Natural Resources (Environmental Conservation) from Cornell University. Sally is an adjunct faculty member at the Graduate Theological Union Center for Art, Religion, and Education and Starr King School for the Ministry teaching “Liberation Art.” In 1998 she received KPFA radio’s Alice Hamburg Community Service Award for her outstanding leadership in serving homeless people in the East Bay. Sally has been a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) since 1984 and is a member of Strawberry Creek Friends Meeting.

Reginald Gentry

Reginald is the Social Media Communications Leader at YSA. He grew up in Oakland, Berkeley, and Richmond. He currently live in Berkeley. Reginald is working towards earning an Associates Degree in Animation and Game Design from Berkeley City College, gaining more social media management/ coordination experience and establishing a more notorious video game career as a streamer and competitive gamer. Since he’s been at YSA in August of 2015, he has worked as an Aspirant Artist, Social Media Leader, Board Member, and Assistant Project Manager. There are multiple skills and knowledge he has learned at YSA such as getting more comfortable with public speaking, how to be a social media coordinator, getting familiar with different genders and sexualities, as well as seeing the positive influence that YSA has upon the Berkeley and the Bay Area community. Reginald has never been an artist necessarily, but art has helped his life by showing him how to appreciate the creativity and originality of people’s artwork, to have a more in-depth conversation with people, and has presented him with opportunities to make money.

Youth Spirit Artworks

Youth Spirit Artworks (YSA) is an interfaith “green” art jobs and job training program located in Berkeley, California which is committed to empowering homeless and low-income San Francisco Bay Area young people.

YSA was founded in 2007, as a response to the enormous employment challenges of older homeless and low-income youth, by one of the initiators of the Alameda County Homeless Youth Collaborative, who had observed first hand at the Telegraph Avenue Homeless Youth Drop-In Center the unmet needs of transition age youth for jobs and jobs training programs.

The mission of Youth Spirit Artworks is to use art jobs and jobs training to empower and transform the lives of youth, giving young people the skills, experience, and self-confidence needed to meet their full potential. YSA is modeled after the renowned New Orleans based-youth organization, Young Aspirations, Young Artists (YaYa) which has involved 1000’s of young people in commercial arts jobs and job training for more than twenty years. Find Out More

Street Spirit is a monthly newspaper that is sold by homeless people in Berkeley and Oakland. It is written by and for unhoused people as well as their advocates. We report rigorously on the politics and policies that impact our community, and publish personal essays, profiles, and poetry. Our mission is to provide economic opportunity for our homeless neighbors while also creating a platform where they can share their own stories. Learn more about our vendor program here.

Street Spirit is published by Youth Spirit Artworks (YSA). YSA is an art jobs training program located in Berkeley, California which is committed to empowering homeless and low-income young people (ages 16-25) in the Bay Area. YSA’s mission is to use art jobs and jobs training to transform the lives of youth, giving young people the skills, experience, and self-confidence needed to meet their full potential. Art saves lives!

Tiny House Village If your are interested in applying to be a resident of our Tiny House Empowerment Village transitional housing program? If you’re between the ages of 18-23, identify either Oakland or Berkeley as your home city, and are currently “literally” homeless as defined by Home Stretch (https://everyonehome.org/our-work/home-stretch/), please click application here !

Donation/Volunteer

This year, we’re raising funds for the nation’s first Tiny House Village. Click the link to donate!!

For our normal program year, the quickest and easiest way to support us is to donate to one of our three projects using the buttons below:

Youth Spirit Artworks - The Fine Art program involves youth in creating original artwork made of traditional, recycled, and reused materials. The Community Arts Program allows our Youth Spirit Leaders partner with Senior Artists and local businesses and schools, and are engaged in public artmaking for community revitalization. Donate

Street Spirit Newspaper - Street Spirit is a publication of Youth Spirit Artworks that reports extensively on homelessness, poverty, economic inequality, welfare issues, human rights issues and the struggle for social justice. Donate

Tiny House Village - Youth Spirit is currently engaged in a ten-year community organizing campaign, responding to the dire youth need for housing, to create “100 Homes for Homeless Youth” in San Francisco’s East Bay. Donate

Aaron Haynes Sanstad Memorial Fund - Gifts to this fund will support a music-focused community space at our new Tiny House Village. Donate

Volunteer - There are many ways you can get involved with Youth Spirit Artworks.

Videos

To find out more about Youth Spirit Artworks check out our videos:

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“I think in our case, I feel like we’re coming out of the pandemic with this momentum and excitement about the possibility of tiny house villages as a solution to the challenges of homelessness and for what they offer youth that is, that really need affordable housing ”

— Sally Hindman, Executive Director,Youth Spirit Artworks

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