The WorldBeat Cultural Center in San Diego's Balboa Park is celebrating getting more funds to keep drumming, dance, gardening and history accessible.
“Everyone drums,” Makeda Dread Cheatom, WorldBeat Center founder, said. “We go to schools and we teach sometimes for nothing because some of the schools can't afford it.”
A $100,000 grant from the Conrad Prebys Foundation means even when some schools can’t afford it, the lessons don’t have to stop.
“The foundation made it possible for us to do more outreach, more fundraising and to pay people, not just volunteers,” Cheatom said.
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Thirty-eight San Diego-based organizations will get a piece of a $5.7 million pie to propel the arts across the county. The vision is to make sure music, dance, theater and cultural education stay within everyone’s reach.
“I feel that our voices have finally, finally been heard and that we've been acknowledged,” Cathlyn Choi, Asian Culture and Media Alliance Founder, said.
Choi founded the Asian Culture and Media Alliance in 2013 to uplift Asian and Pacific Islander communities.
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Over time, ACMA became a voice for other underserved groups too.
“We need to expand our programs, especially the Media Arts Academy,” Choi said. “However, we had some hurdles and challenges along the way.”
Their $200,000 grant from the Prebys Foundation clears those hurdles.
“We're going to expand it to offer it to anybody in our community that's in need, especially in the most vulnerable communities,” Choi said. “It’s going to be called a digital media arts academy.”
Choi hopes the academy can open its doors by next summer.
