"The community stagnates without the impulse of the individual.
Donate to WJA
If you prefer to send a check, we can be reached at:
William James Association
P.O. Box 1632
Santa Cruz, CA 95061
Have your donation matched!
We are delighted to announce that the Marin Community Foundation has offered the William James Association a $20,000 challenge grant in support of our arts programs at San Quentin prison.
In making this grant, the Marin Community Foundation cited the effectiveness of our work, the positive impact of the arts on incarcerated individuals, and our important efforts to encourage the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to reestablish funding for the arts.
Today we ask you to please help us meet this challenge grant by making as generous a donation as you can. Your support will bring creative writing, drawing, printmaking, music, and other classes to men working to better themselves—in preparation for their release back into our community.
For 35 years, the William James Association has acted on the conviction that the fine arts enrich, heal, and bring communities together. With our support, exceptional teachers have provided fine arts instruction to the underserved of society—in prisons, jails, juvenile halls, and court and community schools. It is based on this experience that we know art fosters hope and changes lives. Just two days ago we received this email from a former inmate:
I discovered [writing]… was a way to help lift me from the walls… When I did give up hope, writing was the one certain thing that restored hope…it was my thing, which was too strong and too powerful and too vast to be locked up, enslaved or destroyed. To that point, I am grateful to the William James Association for being there for me, and for people like me. [You] listened to my words, gave me a forum for some of my work. You guys, by publishing a few things, gave me hope, a faint yet undeniable feeling that I just may, some day, be able to pursue my dreams of writing.
Founded in 1978 by Eloise Smith, William James Association’s Prison Arts Project is internationally recognized as a model of excellence. Collaborating with the National Endowment for the Arts, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, California Youth Authority, Marin Community Foundation and others, we will continue to demonstrate that art is a positive and unmatched force for healing individuals and communities.
Your gift will be matched dollar for dollar by the Marin Community Foundation. With your generous support, we will create beauty, hope and healing.
