Community-Word Project

“Go to the park together and have fun. Ride bikes home and make food. Share popcorn and watch movies…”

In this mural by P.S. 279 students, everyone is in the circle. The treehouses, the rooftops, the sun, even the monsters in the corner all have a place.
That’s what great teachers make possible: a room where every young voice belongs.

This World Teachers’ Day, we honor the classroom teachers and teaching artists who lead with radical love and open the door to learning for every kind of learner. Our founder Michele Kotler started Community-Word Project because one teacher, a drummer, taught her in a way she could learn. We’re still paying that gift forward.

👇 Who was the teacher who made you feel seen? Tell us their name and what they taught you in the comments. 🎨✏️

October is National Arts & Humanities Month, and we’re beginning it with a blank space.

The first time I made art, I felt ___.
Free? Seen? Brave? Maybe it was the first time a classroom finally made sense.

For our founder, Michele Kotler, that moment came in 6th grade. Her teacher, who was also a drummer, brought music into the lesson. For a kid with an undiagnosed learning disability, in a school where budget cuts had erased the arts, it was the first time she was taught in a way she could learn. That feeling became Community-Word Project.

Nearly three decades later, our teaching artists create that same opening for young people across NYC in schools. These students carry a lot: underinvested classrooms, new languages, unequal access to care. What they find through poetry, movement, music, and visual art is a voice, and the confidence to use it.

So this month, we’re asking you to finish the sentence. Teaching artists, students, parents, donors, neighbors: tell us in the comments. Every answer adds to a collective voice, and that’s where the work begins. 🧡

Help keep the door to creativity open for the next young artist. Link in bio!

Every voice deserves to be heard. 💛

September is National Su***de Prevention Month, and at Community-Word Project, we start where we always do, with Voice.

When a young person writes a poem, paints a feeling, or reads their words aloud, they’re being seen, heard, and connected.

The research agrees. A World Health Organization review of more than 3,000 studies found the arts play a major role in promoting health and wellbeing. And there’s hope in the latest numbers: persistent sadness among high schoolers fell from 42% in 2021 to 33% in 2025. Progress is possible when communities show up for young people.

To our teaching artists, families, and supporters: thank you for making room for every voice. Our work is a practice in radical love, and part of love is making sure everyone knows where to turn.

If you or someone you love is struggling, call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org. It’s free, confidential, and available 24/7. Support is offered in more than 240 languages.

On August 26th, Teaching Artist Project (TAP) Director Dale Novella Anderson-Lee traveled to Antwerp, Belgium, for the 8th biennial International Teaching Artist Collaborative (ITAC) conference.

Teaching artistry is not a localized effort—it is a vital global infrastructure. On day three of the conference, Dale facilitated an interactive workshop showcasing findings from TAP’s white paper, A Career, Not a Gig: Building Sustainable Teaching Artistry. Developed alongside TAP Coordinator Libby Mislan and Research Consultant Katie Rainey—with crucial support from The Altman Foundation—the study centers on five critical pillars of field sustainability: Career Opportunity, Community & Belonging, Financial Stability, Structural Equity, and Work-Life Balance.

The session engaged international delegates to translate research into real-world strategies. Participants from across the globe collaborated to generate actionable approaches aimed at converting teaching artistry from piecemeal gig work into sustainable, lifelong careers. By bringing NYC-rooted data to an international forum, TAP continues to amplify teacher-artist voices and shape equitable practices for the global field.

Curiosity is a magnifying glass
glowing in your mind
pacing in a classroom
the freedom of wind
through a window.

Students at P.S. 84 wrote these lines together, then painted them into being. The school’s walls open up, a lightbulb glows above one dreamer’s head, and a wide-eyed student holds a magnifying glass up to the world.

This is what happens when young people are taught in a way they can learn: the poem becomes the picture, and the picture becomes a voice.

🌬️ Help us keep the windows open. Link in bio.

🎨 Poem and mural by students at P.S. 84

The Power of Voice | Hispanic Heritage Month

At Community-Word Project, we believe in the power of individual and collective voice, and in the confidence and agency that grow when young people are given the tools to use it. From September 15 through October 15, we celebrate the Latine writers whose voices refused to be quieted, and who opened the door for the next generation to speak.

Elizabeth Acevedo found her voice on the slam stage as a Harlem teenager, then carried it all the way to the National Book Award with The Poet X, a story about a girl who learns her words can’t be silenced. It’s the journey we witness in our classrooms every day.

Photo 1: Elizabeth Acevedo - PBS News

Sandra Cisneros gave The House on Mango Street a voice that belonged to the neighborhood itself, proving that the language you grow up speaking is powerful enough for literature.

Photo 2: Sandra Cisneros - Ulf Andersen/Getty Images

Julia Alvarez lost one language and gained another as a young immigrant in New York, then wrote How the García Girls Lost Their Accents about what it means to find your voice between two worlds. Our students who are new to this country know that story well.

Photo 3: Julia Alvarez - Brandon Cruz González / El Vocero de Puerto Rico

Martín Espada uses his voice as advocacy. A former tenant lawyer turned poet, he shows that a poem can speak up for neighbors when no one else will.

Photo 4: Martín Espada - Mespada

Yosimar Reyes amplifies the voices of undocumented youth, standing beside them as a poet and educator. He is the teaching artist we train every day to become.

Photo 5: Yosimar Reyes - nalac.org

Ada Limón, a poet of Mexican heritage, became the first Latina to serve as U.S. Poet Laureate, and used the role to carry poetry into national parks and public spaces, because a voice is meant to be heard where people gather. Early in her career, she taught second graders in the Bronx as one of our Community-Word Project teaching artists, a chapter she has written about with real tenderness.

Six writers. Six voices that insisted on being heard. When one person speaks their truth, it gives someone else permission to speak theirs. That is how individual voice becomes collective voice, and how collective voice builds a more equitable future.

Photo 6: Ada Limón - Photo credit: Rose Marie Cromwell for the New York Times & NASA/JPL-Caltech

💛💛💛💛💛

We are celebrating Arts In Education Week by helping spread the word about GIVE OUT LOUD, a new podcast hosted by New Victory Teaching Artist Sofiya Cheyenne Brown! 🎙️🎉

GIVE (Growing Inclusivity for Vibrant Engagement) is a collaborative project between New Victory, ArtsConnection, and Community-Word Project that supports arts educators in the creation of liberated learning environments and vibrant arts experiences within inclusion settings.

Tune in with Sofiya as she speaks with Arielle Lever, New Victory Teaching Artist; Jashua Sa-Ra, Teaching Artist at Community-Word Project; and Andrew Strano, Teaching Artist at ArtsConnection, about how they are bringing inclusive practices to their classroom using the GIVE Guide.

🎧 Listen on SoundCloud! Learn more here: https://teachwithgive.org/resource/give-out-loud/

Join TAP alum Diomenne Diakite for an intergenerational workshop series exploring the many ways we experience and express gratitude - through conversation, craft, creative writing, and the meditative art of ikebana. This event is a collaboration between The Confined Arts Program by Another Choice NYC & Harlem Strong Project at The Center of Innovation in Mental Health.

Register at craftinggratitude.eventbrite.com to attend!

It’s National Arts in Education Week — tell Congress the Arts Education can’t wait!

This week, we’re calling on Congress to fully fund arts education’s five federal funding streams, maintain funding for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), and protect access to the arts for every student in every community, from preK-12 through higher education. Arts education shapes creative thinkers, strengthens communities, and opens doors for the next generation.

Join us in urging lawmakers to invest in the future of the arts. Take action: www.artsactionfund.org/arts-action-center



Americans for the Arts