2024-584-E-Arts Commission-Franklin Street Arts Collective-Funding for FRANK Gallery's Youth Art Group outreach program

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Has your organization undergone any Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) training? If so, please explain. If not, please explain any barriers that have prevented you from receiving this training. In the summer of 2023 Board Chairperson Gabrielle Rousso attended Orange County Arts Commission's "Diversity, Equity and Inclusion" training session with Aisha Adams. Since then the gallery, under Rousso's leadership, has been making a conscious effort to implement the take away suggestions from that session. Particularly it has been working to achieve greater diversity by inviting culturally diverse artists to show in its eight annual exhibitions with the possibility of gallery membership, and by seeking culturally diverse Board membership. Noted here is that Gallery Director Natalie Knox if of Polish and Mexican heritage and speaks Spanish. W e also have a Latinx member artist, Theresa Pastoriza-Tan, a Lumbee Native American Board member, Danny Bell, and a Karen refugee, Lah Htoo Boh, as the paid teacher of the Gallery's Youth Art Group. The Board recently welcomed Tova Hairston, director of Boomerang Youth, to its ranks. She is African American professional and well versed in multi cultural youth initiatives. FRANK currently has two artist "calls"-one for an emerging artist and the other for full member artists. Every effort has been make to contact local culturally diverse organizations about these opportunities and we hope that the outcomes will help FRANK meet its goal of becoming more racially and culturally diverse. W e are in the process of creating a new strategic plan aimed at making FRANK more DEI compliant-this is not a rapid process for a small gallery which, over the past year, has also been engaging with its new community after its move to Carrboro. Meanwhile our youth initiatives are all geared to the ideals of diversity, equity and inclusion. The twelve year old Karen Youth Art Group comprising Karen Burmese refugees has ben renamed the FRANK Youth Art Group and now includes many non Karen members including Hondurans. W e have also recently re engaged with Kidzu Children's Museum and have started to work on integrating their refugee education program with FRANK's. As this partnership progresses FRANK will hold some of its youth arts classes at Kidzu and vice versa. It is planned that FRANK will eventually take Kidzu refugee students over 10 years of age into its Youth Art Program. In this initiative we are working with Melanie Hass, Director of Kidzu and Grizelda Martinez, the Museum's DEI specialist. W e would like to note that our Youth Art Group teacher, Lah Htoo Boh is also the “Lead Makery” teacher at Kidzu. He is a former member of FRANK's Karen Youth Art Group and a BFA Graduate of UNC Greensboro. During FY24-25, will your organization receive operational support funding from the North Carolina Arts Council or the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources? W e are awaiting a funding decision Organization's EIN 201121059.0 Organization W ebsite www.frankisart.com Authorizing Official's Name Gabrielle Rousso Authorizing Official's Title Chairperson, FRANK Gallery Board of Directors Authorizing Official's Phone 919-636-4135 Docusign Envelope ID: CBE41939-719A-4696-9DEF-A5A8E3BD2E8B