Help Continue Youth Playmaking/Education

As many of you may know, Passage Theatre Company (New Jersey) has had an outreach program aimed at Trenton's youth, ages 8 to 22, since 1995. The education program matches Trenton's young people with professional artist-mentors in playwriting, performance, spoken-word, and technical theatre classes. Throughout the year, Passage provides after school arts programs through a number of local partner organizations, including (in recent years) Trenton Central High School, the Emily Fisher Charter School, the Boys & Girls Club, the Ellarslie Museum and the River City Community School. The program is well known for its "Playmaking", a writing process which can be adapted to teen and pre-teen students, based on a model developed by New York's 52nd Street Project.

These students have gone on to do wonderful things in their communities. Many of them have also graduated high school with honors and some have gone on to pursue their career interests with full scholarships as a result of their outstanding work with this program.

However this year, the program (generally funded by grants) has suffered a major blow. It has lost a good portion of its funding -- 80%. We're asking you to please help us continue this wonderful outreach effort by donating just a few dollars and sharing this with your friends.

Check out the attached video for their amazing story on 'State of the Arts'.