Join us in Painting a Brighter Future.

BuildaBridge Teaching Artist Mindy Flexer will be holding her school's Open Studio and Mask-Making Workshop on October 1-2, along with the Greene Street Artists Cooperative in Germantown. BuildaBridge is very grateful for her willingness to support our work and the Painting A Brighter Future (PABF) campaign by creating a BuildaBridge corner in the Open Studio. Go, explore, and learn more about her work - and bring a friend! Don't forget to ask her about her work with BuildaBridge at one of the transitional facilities with which we partner, Women Against Abuse (WAA).

BuildaBridge Teaching Artist Mindy Flexer will be holding her school's Open Studio and Mask-Making Workshop on October 1-2, along with the Greene Street Artists Cooperative in Germantown. BuildaBridge is very grateful for her willingness to support our work and the Painting A Brighter Future (PABF) campaign by creating a BuildaBridge corner in the Open Studio. Go, explore, and learn more about her work - and bring a friend! Don't forget to ask her about her work with BuildaBridge at one of the transitional facilities with which we partner, Women Against Abuse (WAA).

I danced 5 days a week from the time I was 11 to age 18. 

Dance is what kept me going.  Dance kept me out of trouble; it provided hope for my future and stability during the rocky teenage years.  Dancing provided an outlet for stress.  Dancing was a skill I learned to master with rigorous practice and continued encouragement from my teachers.  The combination of sharpening my own skills in an art form while learning in the context of community of other like minded dancers gave me a renewed perspective on everything else in my life.

Artist on Call Amy Freeman volunteered with BuildaBridge back in the beginning of its Discovery programming. Amy has an MFA in theater.

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If you tell someone you have to stay after school, they usually think you did something bad, got
detention. There are times when staying after school is a good, no a great, thing, though. As an
elementary school student in first, second and third grade, staying after school one day a week meant
Brownies. And Brownies meant arts and crafts, snacks and an awesome uniform. While the details of
what we actually did at each Brownies meeting are spotty nearly 20 years later, I do remember enough
to see how being a Girl Scout at such as young age shaped me throughout the rest of my life.

Brownies receive small patches or badges for each award completed. Excited to show off the badges
I'd worked hard for, I hand-sewed each to my sash. Years,later, I'm still sewing, although the projects
have admittedly gotten more complicated. The same holds true for theater, which I got one of my first
tastes of during Brownies. As an adult, I have a MFA in theater. And finally, my love of crafts. Does
that stem from the one Brownie meeting I remember clearly, during which we made potato stamps?
Probably.

Another key part of Brownies and Girl Scouts is camping. During troop camping trips and visits to
Girl Scouts camps in the summer, I learned to respect nature, even though the method used didn't jive
with me at the time (we couldn't kill the icky bugs in the tent, since they were there first), but makes
perfect sense to me now.

I haven't stopped to think about my experience as a Brownie for years now. But looking back on it, I'm
amazed at how much one day after school each week shaped my personality, interests, and values for
the rest of my life.

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3:30 is a question: What is your 3:30 story and what role will you play in contributing to the development of children in your city and your world?

BuildaBridge answers with our own stories of transformation from the children we serve.

3:30 is a challenge: What will you do about 3:30?

BuildaBridge responds with the continuation of after school programming for children in need.

3:30 is a promise.

BuildaBridge promises to uphold this commitment both in Philadelphia and abroad.

Will you respond?  Will you commit?  Will you advocate?  Will you give?

I still remember the anticipation for school to end, when I would walk to the back of the Boys and Girls Club, pull open the heavy door, and climb to my place on the creaky choir risers. Our teacher taught us to stand ready and expectant, because we knew a secret: it was time for magic. In that room, dreams came true, good triumphed over evil, and the little, true voice was loud enough to be heard. In that room, we learned Disney songs. It sounds silly, but we believed in the magic. I still do.

How else did our many voices become one, strong voice that made the walls reverberate? Our teacher gave us the audacity to believe the magic lived inside each of us. I learned so much in that choir room: lyrics, harmonies, rhythm. Every class, our teacher challenged us with something we thought we couldn't do. And, at the beginning of every class, we couldn't. Yet she always proved to us we could do it, together, and she told us it was okay that at first we couldn't. She believed in us - and what's more - worked with us so that we believed, too. That was the magic. Now, it's my turn to share the magic, providing these same opportunities to children of the next generation. This is why I Think 3:30.

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3:30 is a question: What is your 3:30 story and what role will you play in contributing to the development of children in your city and your world?

BuildaBridge answers with our own stories of transformation from the children we serve.

3:30 is a challenge: What will you do about 3:30?

BuildaBridge responds with the continuation of after school programming for children in need.

3:30 is a promise.

BuildaBridge promises to uphold this commitment both in Philadelphia and abroad.

Will you respond?  Will you commit?  Will you advocate?  Will you give?