Sneak Peek! San Mateo Public Library Youth Authors Showcase

We're ready for the weekend!

Meet us at the San Mateo Public Library

Our Featured Books

We're thrilled that the San Mateo Public Library is featuring books written by the Creative Youth Collective and Whole Child Education members this month. Visit the youth section of the main branch in downtown San Mateo to check out Charlie, Vincent, and Claren's books. If you can't wait to get to the library, we understand! Take a peek at the full ebooks now.

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Youth Author Showcase

This Saturday, October 14th from 11 - 11:45 am, Charlie, Vincent, and Claren (WCE) will share a brief excerpt from their books, and talk a bit about their ideas and inspirations at our Youth Author Showcase, generously hosted by SMPL. At the end, we'll have a raffle and every attendee will have a chance to win one of our featured books!

Thank you so much for joining us in celebrating this incredible opportunity for our young authors! We appreciate your support.


Share our event with your community. 

Buy a copy of our young authors' books through our Blurb store! 100% of our profits support causes that we care deeply about.
Check out the organizations we're supporting this year.

We're at the San Mateo County Library!

BIG NEWS!

Creative Youth Collective members featured at the San Mateo County Library

Exhibition, Youth Author Showcase, and Raffle

We are thrilled to announce that the San Mateo Public Library is featuring the work of two of our Creative Youth Collective members this month and next. Visit the youth section of the main branch in downtown San Mateo to check out Charlie and Vincent's hard and soft cover books.

And on Saturday, October 14th from 11 - 11:45 am, the SMCL's will host our very own Youth Author Showcase. Charlie, Vincent, and Claren (WCE) will each share a brief excerpt from their books, and talk a bit about their creative processes. At the end, we'll have a raffle and every attendee will have a chance to win one of our featured books!

We would love for you to join us in celebrating this incredible opportunity for our young authors. Here's how you can support -

Share our flyer with your community.

Join us on our Facebook Event page.

Buy your very own copy of our young authors' books through our Blurb store! 100% of our profits support causes that we care deeply about. Check out the organizations we're supporting this year.

CYC Scholarship Exhibition Finissage: Sunday, July 2nd

Namibia
Photographs and Stories by Anna Calia

Creative Youth Collective Scholarship
Exhibition Finissage

July 2, 2023
11 - 1 pm | The Village Hub | Woodside, CA

Please join us this Sunday, July 2nd, from 11 am - 1 pm at The Village Hub's Open House event! It's the last day to visit Anna's Namibia exhibition, and an opportunity to meet the artist herself. All work is available for purchase. 16 x 20 inch framed prints are $150 each, and include a 20% donation to The Village Hub.

Here's a sneak peak at two photographs in the show, along with commentary from the photographer. If you're unable to join us in person this Sunday, you can see the full exhibition and purchase prints through our website, as well! 

Dune 45

The dunes of Sossusvlei in the Namib-Naukluft National Park get their red color from the iron oxide content in the sand. The tone is intensified by the rising sun and by the contrast of light and shadow. The wind blows from all directions, shifting the sand into a characteristic pattern known as a "star dune."  This was not the easiest photograph to take – it required a pre-dawn hike through shifting sands to the windy top of the dune – but it was worth it to be able to capture the moment at which the natural light revealed this intense color.

Strolling for a Snack

The N/a’an Ku Se Reserve spans thousands of hectares outside of Windhoek, Namibia and provides protection to injured, orphaned, and conflict animals. The protections afforded this giraffe give him the freedom to pursue the simple, comforting pleasure of searching for a tasty treat, while bringing the viewer along with him. In addition to protecting wildlife, the foundation focuses on conserving the culture and land of Namibia. 

All We Do

Dear Friends,

The CCC Project is creating a library of expanded storytelling authored by youth. Working with text, photographs, moving images and sound to express the unique vision of each member of the Creative Youth Collective, we use storytelling as a form of youth-centered activism. In sharing our stories, we dream, imagine, and create new futures.

On Sunday, May 21st, the Creative Youth Collective and Whole Child Education communities gathered to celebrate the stories we’ve woven this year at The Village Hub in Woodside, Ca. Parents, family, and friends of the young artists and writers joined us in celebrating the release of five new books, two blogs, a film, and an exhibition of photographs. 

In addition to the hard and soft cover books, each member of the Creative Youth Collective designed a poster for their story with a QR code that linked to their ebook, film, or blog. All of the Creative Youth Collective stories are featured in the library on our website, where you can flip through the books, check out the blogs, and watch the film. We are so proud of our young artists and writers, and the ideas they've realized over the course of the last academic year! 

Creative Youth Collective Scholarship
Exhibition Open House

July 2, 2023
11 - 1 pm | The Village Hub
Woodside, CA

In 2022, The CCC Project established the Creative Youth Collective Scholarship: a full semester, merit-based award that celebrates young artists and writers who demonstrate exceptional talent and commitment to their creative visions. Our 2023 CYC Scholarship recipient Anna Calia's solo exhibition,Namibia, is on view at The Village Hub in Woodside, CA through July 2, 2023.

Photographs by Anna Calia, 16x20 archival C-Prints

During the summer of 2022, Anna was part of a photography and conservation student travel program in Namibia. She spent a month camping in the bush, photographing, and learning about the incredible wildlife. This exhibition celebrates her commitment to her work as a photographer, as well as her deep respect for animals, nature, and the environment.

I’ve had the honor of mentoring Anna and helping her cultivate her passion for photography and writing since she was ten years old. It’s been an absolute pleasure to watch her continuously grow as an artist throughout the last seven years. In autumn, Anna will be heading to Washington DC to study photojournalism at Corcoran School of Art and Design at George Washington University where she will continue to follow her passion for photography and environmental conservation.

Please join us at The Hub's exhibition Open House on July 2nd from 11 am - 1 pm to see Anna's exhibition in person, and meet the artist herself! All work is available for purchase. 16 x 20 inch framed prints are $150 each. If you're unable to join us in person, and you can see the full exhibition featured on our website, as well.

Creative Youth Collective 2023-24 Registration

The CCC Project believes that creativity, curiosity, and community form the cornerstones of an engaged life. We are a highly personalized, radically collaborative arts and humanities education platform for creative youth. With a foundation in mentorship and interdisciplinary arts education, we provide the framework to help young artists and writers discover and dive deeper into their interests, develop the skills needed to realize long term idea-driven projects, and most importantly, share their creative work with the communities that matter to them most.

We have very limited space left for the upcoming academic year. If you think this program might be the perfect fit for a creative young person in your life, please click here to schedule a free personal consultation. 

Warmly,
Kathryn

All We Do
A poem by Ben Okri

Gazing at the shape of a hill, 
The grey horizon, 
A woman reading a book,
A landscape shaped by history.
All we do is story.

Our public acts are dreams.
Our private acts are dramas.
Submerged rivers are our thoughts,
Misted streams our hopes.

Like the spider we turn
All things into ourselves.
We bend the light
Of time into fables.

Beyond our mind, reality moves.
Unknowable like the darkness
Before creation.

We carve from the unknown
A world.

Without story
Our identities
Starve.

We live in and out
Of time
Simultaneously.

Living belongs to story.
Being belongs to mystery.
Beyond form
Our souls
Breathe.

We yield time
Our story-making sense.
In this portion of eternity,
Awake and in dreams,
We live myths.
It's what makes us immense.

Spring 2023 News and Events

Dear Friends,

It's been an action packed semester here at The CCC Project! As we wrap up this school year and plan for the next, I'm so excited to share what we've been up to as well as what's ahead.  

 

Creative Work Share and Artist Talk with
Trina Michelle Robinson

On Saturday, April 1, 2023, members of The Creative Youth Collective and Whole Child Education got together for the very first time in Woodside, CA to meet each other, learn about each other's current creative projects, and listen to our featured artist Trina Michelle Robinson speak about her interdisciplinary art practice. Trina explores the relationship between memory and migration through film, print media, archival materials and text. Her work has been shown at galleries and film festivals throughout the country including including the BlackStar Film Festival in Philadelphia, the San Francisco Art Commission Main Gallery, Minnesota Street Project, New York’s Wassaic Project and is included in the Museum of the African Diaspora’s (MoAD) Emerging Artist Program 2022-2023. She told the story of exploring her ancestry with The Moth Mainstage on stages throughout the country including New York’s Lincoln Center and NPR’s Moth Radio Hour. 

Creative Work Share and Artist Talk, April 2023, Woodside, CA
Members of the Creative Youth Collective and Whole Child Education check out some of the materials Trina brought back from Senegal and Cameroon. 

Creative Youth Collective

Exhibition & Celebration

At the beginning of the Fall semester, we launched the Creative Youth Collective (CYC), an innovative, student-centered program, specially designed to inspire youth to cultivate their passions, realize their ideas, and share their creative work with the communities they care about most. I cannot wait to share the wildly imaginative projects each member of the collective is currently bringing to life. And next month, I'm happy to say, we'll have the opportunity to do just that!

On Sunday, May 21, 2023 from 2-4 pm, the Creative Youth Collective and Whole Child Education will celebrate the work we’ve created this year with an exhibition in Guild Hall at The Village Hub in Woodside. We’re inviting parents, family, and friends of the young artists and writers to join us in celebrating our creativity, curiosity, and community.

At this event, we will also honor our very first Creative Youth Collective Scholarship recipient, Anna Calia. Anna is an accomplished visual artist and photojournalist, who is on her way to college to continue studying fine art in the Fall. I started working with Anna when she was 10 years old; it's been an incredible privilege to mentor her as her creative interests have developed and deepened over the past 7 years. 

We'd love to have you join us! Please click here if you'd like to be added to our guest list.

Summer and Fall Registration 2023-2024

Registration is now open to new creative youth who would like to join the Creative Youth Collective for summer programming as well as the 23-24 school year! Space is limited, so if you think this program might be the perfect fit for a creative young person in your life, click here to schedule a personal consultation. Registration forms and deposits are due on June 1st.
 

If you know someone who would appreciate the work we do, I would be grateful if you forwarded this link to them -- we love making new friends. As always, thank you so much for your interest in The CCC Project, and for your support of creative youth!

List of Recommended Specialists

Maya and I would like to thank all of our past and current clients for the incredible references you sent us for our List of Recommended Specialists. It has been an absolute pleasure getting to know each of the professionals we've included on the list, and we hope that you will have an opportunity to get to know them, too. We will be regularly updating it as we receive more recommendations.