Support the Creative Hub's Journey to $6,000

Hi Community,

THANK YOU to everyone who has supported us thus far with making sure the lights stay on and the doors stay open at the Creative Hub for Cultures. We appreciate each and every donation we have received. Our last fundraiser made it halfway to our fundraising goal of $10,000, and we are now fundraising for the remainder of our NYSEG Bill and the costs of running and operating the Hub. We know that we can make it to $6,000 with the support of our community if everyone contributes what they are able. We're hoping for a full summer here at the Creative Hub, with a continuation of our monthly Creative Resistance Film Series, garden parties celebrating BIPOC land sovereignty, ongoing Alliance of Families for Justice Women and Men's Group meetings, recovery meetings, free markets, and continuing to build beloved community here in Ithaca. However, all of this is only possible if we have a solid space from which to operate.

Please read more about the Creative Hub below and consider supporting our work for collective liberation, autonomy, and decolonization today. Thank you!

The Creative Hub is a community space on West MLK Jr. Street in Ithaca, NY that has been home to a variety of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color)-led organizations in Ithaca for the past 7 years, most recently the Alliance of Families for Justice, Indigo Rising, Civic Ensemble/ReEntry Theater and the Creative Hub for Cultures (C4C), formerly Multicultural Resource Center (MRC).

As a grassroots community based space, we fought to stay afloat during the pandemic. While incredible community support has helped us be able to keep up with our rent this year, there has not been any excess to put towards our NYSEG bill, which grew during the pandemic to the amount of almost $10,000.00. We are fundraising in order to keep our doors open to all the grassroots organizations and people in our community who feel welcomed and supported by our space. Maintaining the Creative Hub ensures that our community can thrive through continued access to essential resources, as well as keeping the revolutionary community spirit of the Hub alive and kicking.

"Working at the Creative Hub has allowed my participants to enter a convenient location and accessible space, where they feel welcomed and loved unconditionally. It has also given me the pleasure to interact with a diverse population of human beings. I have been educated in a way, from other cultures, and have learned how to let go of my prejudices. The Creative Hub has brought me peace and calm on days I wanted to give up. Last but not least, I have had the opportunity to work with some of the most beautiful individuals, who are now my FAMILY." - Phoebe Brown, AFJ Coordinator

The Creative Hub continues to be a space where we of the learning diaspora come together to give a genuine exchange of our cultures and ideals. This space continues to give our community a sense of belonging and an opportunity to manifest our communal desires. In this space we are given opportunities to reform our ways of thinking, speaking, engaging and co-creating for our community.

In addition to office space for BIPOC organizations, the Creative Hub has housed a free store with clothing, books and food, countless community events, art installations, shared meals, activist meetings, and much more. Most importantly, it has been a space in the heart of downtown Ithaca where community members know they can stop for powerful conversation, needed resources, a warm resting place, and a location to gather with others in an environment committed to care, dignity and justice for all who enter.

The Creative Hub has been an essential anchor for Ithaca’s BIPOC-led organizing work and community building. We hope for more ease in sharing space together, and being able to thrive without threat of our utilities being shut off. Your donation is an act of solidarity and generosity that will allow for the revolutionary community spirit of the Hub to survive this current financial struggle and expand needed anti-racist work within our community.

More from participants about the necessity of preserving the Creative Hub:

"Coming to meetings and events at the Creative Hub I have experienced what People of Color led organizing truly looks and feels like. This precious, powerful environment has been unparalleled by anything else in Ithaca that I have been a part of." - Aislyn Colgan, Creative Hub participant and volunteer

"The Creative Hub is one of the few truly pluralistic, democratic, free spaces in Ithaca where the exchange of various ideas, sensibilities, perspectives, and bodies are not just invited, but are exalted. Young or old, no matter your gender, ethnicity, or economic background this space has the power of seduction. The space is adorned with warm colors, plant life, art and posters reflecting the histories of resistance and beauty that strengthen our commitment to community and justice, and as those of us who are longtime volunteers and stewards of the MRC, we witness the people who walk by and stop to just peer in, or read the many pamphlets positioned on the windows advertising cultural exchange and the marketplace of democratic and grassroot ideas and resources...we see their eyes widen with wonder, or their heads nod with resonance, we see them and then of course they are welcomed in...for a quick or prolonged chat, for a nap on our comfy couch, to use the bathroom freely, for a transportation card, for a quiet place to get homework done, for a safe space to just hang and listen to some music, or for a space in which to express one's grief.

Whatever the motivation or desire, the Creative Hub with it's convenience and accessibility avails itself, similar to an aunt's or cousin's home: it's a space that recognizes everyone as familiar and familial. I've heard on countless occasions from folks who have felt like the streets were what's left when they have felt evicted from everywhere else, express gratitude and deep thanks for the Creative Hub. A testimony I remember said that "yall keep it real!". I've known the Creative Hub to be a place occupied with people who reflect thoughtfulness, candor, humility and the epitome of co-operation and grace. This, among so much more, is why this space, and spaces like it, must be protected and supported at all costs. - McDonald (Mac) Morris, Creative Hub participant and volunteer

"The Creative Hub has been a place that has connected me to my community. The space has offered a place to commune and ask hard questions in order to discuss strategies of liberation. I've learned alongside friends and collaborated in creative ways to further my knowledge in racial justice and community organizing." - Willow Brown, Creative Hub participant and volunteer