November 18, 2025 • 30 mins
Community DC Host Dennis Glasgow visits with Founder and CEO for Story Tapestries, Arianna Ross. Story Tapestries is a non-profit in Washington DC that uses the arts to foster inclusion and personal growth by providing performances, workshops, and training for people of all ages in schools and communities. They focus on using arts integration to teach subjects like literacy and STEAM, build confidence, and develop hard and soft skills such as public speaking, digital literacy, and resume writing. The organization also works with partners to develop long-term, sustainable arts-based programs to support community development, workforce development, and other goals.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Good morning, and welcome to another edition of Community DC.
I'm your host Dennis Glasgow. This morning, we welcome to
the program for the first time Ariana Ross. She is
the founder and CEO for Story Tapestries, a nonprofit in Washington,
d C. That uses arts to foster inclusion, personal growth,
and community development by providing performances, workshops, and residencies. It
(00:23):
partners with schools and communities to develop programs for people
of all ages that focus on areas like literacy, workforce development,
and mental health. Here's my conversation with Ariana. I hope
you enjoy it as much as I did.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Good morning, Ariana, Good morning.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Well, it is great to have you for the first
time on Community DC and I am stoked to talk
to you about all the amazing things that you've done
over the last fifteen years with Story Tapestries. And I
have a feeling that our audience and myself are going
to be introduced through a lot of cool things that
you and your team do. But I think we should
start from the beginning of fifteen years ago because I
always love to find out about origin stories, about why
(00:59):
somebody comes up with an idea, especially nonprofit, because we
know in this program. It's not easy to start a
nonprofit and then keep it going for as long as
you had the last fifteen years. So can you tell
us about the origin stories, about why you started story
You asked.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
About our origin story, and I think it is really
important to understand that for us, it was about the
need before we were not for rovit. I've actually been
doing this work for twenty six years, and before we
were not for profit, I found myself ariana Ross, kind
of by my lonesome, coming upon schools, libraries, community centers
(01:34):
that couldn't afford my services. I was working with another organization.
I was a storyteller. I was a writer, I was
an educator, I was a performer. I was doing all
the things that Story Tapestries now does. But I was
frustrated because people couldn't afford my services. And when I
would say, well, what do you mean you can't afford that?
And I would go all right, and I would go
(01:55):
to a local business and I'd say, to local business,
here's what I need you to do. You know that
you have the funds, could you give the money to
the school the library. They will then give the money
to the organization. I was working for and then that
organization would pay me. That's a little ridiculous. It was
probably about I would say, eight years into this that
(02:16):
someone came up to me and said, Ariana, you should
found a not for profit. Essentially, you are basically doing
exactly what a not for profit would do, except that
you don't have a board, a team, a staff to
support you. And my first response was no, I don't
want that. That's a lot of work. But eventually they
(02:37):
convinced me and they helped me to understand. And one
of our very first employees as a not for profit
was a woman, Lorian Beal's. Laurian is now the vice
president of the organization and our chief development officer. She
is my right hand and my left hand, and it
(02:59):
really you know, she has been along the journey with
me the entire time, and it truly came. In the beginning.
We had a budget, if you're not gonna believe this,
of ten thousand dollars a budget, wow. And now we're
a little over a million and we're growing, and it
really all starts with the need. In the very beginning,
we're very clear one hundred percent of our programs need
(03:24):
to be free to the community. That doesn't mean that
the community can't apply for a grant, they can't fundraise,
they can't do all that they need to do to
get the money. But we will help them. If they
don't have the ability to write a grant, we will
write a grant with them. And then we just want
to make sure that individuals have access to programs whenever possible.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Well, let's do this before we talk about all the
many things that you and your team do for the community.
It really is extraordinary. I always like to talk and
ask about mission and vision and what are those now.
They might have changed over fifteen years, but as you said,
turned it out to where you are today. What our
mission and vision for Story Tapestries.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
I think that what is key about our mission and
our vision is that we are really what we call
a communications organization and an arts service organization, which essentially
means is that we use the arts as a tool
to solve community problems. So any community problem can be
solved with the right tools in place. Correct. Yeah, and
(04:25):
so if you are hungry and you are dealing with
food insecurity, but you don't have access to the economic
means to battle that, well, how do you do that? Well,
you need a job, or you need to increase your pay.
So that's where story tapestries. We provide tools that allow
people to be able to increase their economic means, or
(04:46):
meet their goals, or or or to solve a problem.
That's one of our big values and our vision. Really
what has always been focused on, how do we put
the tools in the hands of those who needed So
all of our programs are custom designed for the community.
We don't say we have the answers. We always say
(05:08):
that the community has the answers. They come to us,
and then we custom design what are the tools in
our toolbox that we can use to be able to
support that. Initially part of our vision was to create
a network of individuals who believed in the power of
the arts to change community. But I have to say
(05:29):
we did that and five years ago we looked around
and we realized, oh my goodness, we have this beautiful network.
Now we need to put this network tease.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
And I should also say, with you talking about that,
you obviously made it. I don't know if it was
a major league pivot, but you had to grow and
to grow that's what you did.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Absolutely we grew, and we one of the ways in
which we grew is we actually now have two entities
under the same umber. We have Story Tapestries Incorporated, which
serves Maryland Northern Virginia and it does do some national work.
And then we actually recently in the last year, created
(06:11):
Story Tapestries of Washington, d C, which makes it easier
for us to serve Washington DC directly, partner with business leaders,
community members, the library system. We do a lot of
programming with the DC Public Library System, but having a
DC entity as well as a Maryland entity, it creates
(06:35):
a platform by which we can better serve and support
and collaborate with the community outstanding.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Well, listen, I want to really get a knee deep
into all the programs and things that you offer, and
we're going to find about how you make your money
and how people can donate and volunteer, and also your partners,
because I know partners are a real big deal, especially
when it comes to public schools and other entities out there.
But what that said, I think we got everybody's attention
about kind of the cool things that you do, Arianna.
So what that said, is there a criteria when somebody
(07:04):
wants to work with Story tapestries, whether it's a child
or a young adult, and how do they, you know,
start the process about working with you. What is the
criteria to working with you guys?
Speaker 2 (07:14):
So it is one hundred percent need based, meaning that
and right now and across the board, I would say
needs are ever changing. Right so, we have pressing needs
that we are really looking to address early childhood educations,
sort of gap in the requirements, pay rates for early
childhood educators, disparity of services, while simultaneously we also work
(07:38):
with seniors on the isolation of seniors. In addition, I
don't know if you're familiar with the social determinants of health.
The social determinants of health include mental health and well being,
education from sort of zero all the way on up,
as well as workforce development and community safety. It oftentimes
(07:59):
is someone will come to us and they'll say, we
have this gap, we have this issue, we have this concern.
We are looking for a collaborator, a partner to fill
that gap. I'm going to use a beautiful example of
Montgomery County Coalition for the Homeless. They have a men's
shelter and a family shelter, and we provide programming specifically
(08:21):
to their men's shelter, and our programming has changed based
on their requests. So we have a consistent program which
is our Digital Literacy program, which is digital solutions that
bridge the divide. We are always looking for speakers to
that program as well as funders. Comcast m is one
of our primary funders of that as well as Adobe.
(08:43):
And for that program, the men receive digital skills and
public speaking skills as well as financial literacy skills in
order for them to be able to get a job,
and it is artists that actually provide those skills to
them to help them feel more confident. A prime example
of success is one man. He had only come to
(09:05):
one workshop, and normally people come consistently to many workshops.
He came to one workshop and then a few weeks
later he came back just grinning ear to ear. He
had told us that because of the workshop, this was
a man who had been homeless for quite some time,
he had had a stroke. He did not feel confident
(09:26):
about his public speaking abilities, his ability to enunciate his
words effectively, but because of the public speaking workshop, he
had been able to do an excellent job in an
interview process and he had a job that's huge, and
it was. It was huge at the same time, right,
(09:47):
we also in the same entity. We worked with them
to beautify their space. We worked with a funder. The
men took photographs, beautiful photographs of themselves. But also I've
just kind of they took art and they really like
changed it and transformed. Maybe they took a picture of
one of them like looking up and they put a
(10:08):
background behind it, and then they use that art to
beautify their wellness room. And I have watched the men
walk into that space and their entire body language changes
when they see the artwork on the walls. Now you
go from there to a school, right, I can't tell
you I am the CEO. I still go into schools
(10:30):
and communities. I myself, I am a storyteller and a dancer
and a consultant. I partner with business leaders and community members.
But now I get the honor of going in and
seeing our forty plus artists out in the community, our staff,
our mighty staff of seven that is ever growing. And
I have had teachers, community members walk up and give
(10:53):
me the biggest hug and mentioned me you know, I
was feeling fed, And then your artist came in and
worked with my little people, and I saw how they
started to pay attention to more. They began to develop vocabulary.
A child who'd never spoken before was suddenly making noise
and speaking. Thank you for reminding me why I became
(11:17):
a teacher in the first place. At a time that
is really frustrating and difficult, I needed this reminder. Wow,
And I think that is that is really key or
seniors who will say to you, you know, I wasn't
sure how to communicate with my grandchildren and my children
they don't live here. Learning how to take photographs and
(11:39):
then send the photograph as like an album or a
little film might seem like easy to as they put it,
to a twenty somethingter or a teenager, but for me,
who was ninety four years old, it allowed me to
feel like I mattered again.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
You know.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
The one thing that I'm gathering before side the incredible
thing of the arts that we're going to talk more about,
that's really in your wheelhouse along with your team. But
I'm also learning along with our audience here, is that
you're giving real world issues people access to it so
they can do what you and I might think is
pretty simple, but they don't know how to do that,
and now they can execute that and feel really great
(12:18):
about themselves and maybe even get a job. Like you
told that's incredible.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
And it is really about practical solutions. Right. You obviously
are very confident in communicating, right that you're on radio,
That is not a worrior or a concern for many people. Communication.
How do you write an email? How do you tell
a story? How do you advocate your child is struggling
in school? How do you advocate? Recently, Washington Gas sponsored
(12:48):
story type issues. They came on as a sponsor and
they asked us to come in and we worked with
I believe is twelve different small businesses and we actually
work with these small businesses on how to communicate their
story had increased the return on their investment. And at first,
(13:09):
I'm not going to lie to you, who was hard
I was. I said to my team, this is not
going to be easy. These were contractors, plumbers, pipe layers,
They're not artists, and yet we got them to write
an eleven word poem called a Loon. We got them
to tell stories. And one woman who was a woman
(13:29):
owned contractor and construction worker walked out of there and
she said to me, you know, I now understand the
power of my words to be able to win a contract.
And I recognize the fact that she one of her
sort of high important principles was that she hires individuals
with intellectual and developmental disabilities, not necessarily to be the
(13:52):
lead on a project, but to support the project. And
she had first told me, all, I don't have a
story to tell. I'm just a contractor. Everybody's a contractor
in this room. I asked her, though, what makes you unique,
my team explainer, Whatever makes you unique is what's going
to sell you that's going to help you win that contract.
(14:13):
And I think that's really critical. Whether you are a
younger person trying to learn how to navigate the world
and ultimately either go to college or get a job right,
or you're someone who was in the job force but
now lost your job because of a health reason, or
because of an environmental reason, or because of financial reasons.
You know, you need to have the ability to communicate
(14:36):
your vision and what makes you a unique individual. And
I think that's critical. I will tell you there's one
element aspect that people don't think about that is a
very practical piece of the puzzle. We over the last
I would say three years. Since twenty twenty two, we
(14:57):
began working with psychologists and therapists and offering our team trainings.
When you walk into a room where there are individuals
dealing with serious mental health issues, how do you navigate that?
And we are not, So we have therapists that we
(15:19):
contract with that if we find that we really need
that serious therapeutic partnership, we have the ability to sort
of make that happen. And I think that's a really
critical piece of the puzzle and a critical tool that
we leverage and that we utilize because we recognize that
artists are not therapists. However, there's a gray area of
(15:43):
Oftentimes they walk into a room, be it with a
business leader or a two year old, and that individual
is dealing with a mental health crisis. They're dealing with depression,
they're dealing with stress, they're dealing with burnout, worries that
maybe they shouldn't Maybe they're a five year old and
(16:03):
their family is currently homeless. There was a young man
he was in the third grade and his family had
been homeless for approximately a month. They were living in
a hotel and the school said, you know, he has
not stayed in the classroom for but five minutes a day.
(16:26):
He consistently leaves and has him out down. It was
just stress. Our team met, we really brainstormed what could
we do, how could we help him. We have on
staff individuals Jamie Cowan who has a master's degree in education,
Jessica Wallach who is an accessibility specialist, doctor Sue Snyder
(16:50):
who's a reading specialists was on our board as a
past board member, Valley bous Slausburg, Jikibiko. We all met
and we thought, all right, what can we do to
help this young man? And we worked with the teacher
to give the teacher the tools that she needed and
success looked like We stayed in the room and he
(17:11):
participated in writing a story and he completed the tasks
he was required to complete for forty five minutes.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
And I know for some people that might be like, well,
a child should stay in the classroom because that's it. Yes,
I'm not disagreeing with you, but you have to understand
when a child or an adult is facing trauma. There's
actually a neurologist explain this to me. Their brain pattern
shifts and they just don't have the capacity to be
able to stay put to listen. Their body and their
(17:46):
adrenal glands causes them to panic and they just fly
or you know, fight or flight, or they get angry
and they start to fight, even though what they really
need to do is take a breath.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Well, that's one of those stories when I ask people,
you know, why do you get up in the morning,
and those are one of the ones. You know, this
is why we get up to make a difference. That's
an extraordinary story. I do want to talk about some
other programs, and I know that it would dominate the
whole podcast for thirty minutes that we talked about all
the incredible programs you do, but maybe some that you're
most proud of or have been the most effective. By
the ones you've already mentioned, can you, for our audience
(18:20):
talk about a couple more that really, you know, kind
of hit the nail on the head.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Absolutely. So. We have our program called Write Your Story
Right Your Story is about building foundational literacy skills for
individuals zero through age seven seven eight, and we also
work with professional development workshops for the teachers that are
supporting those children. The idea being that we really need
(18:46):
to combat and I say combat because sometimes it feels
like a little bit of a fight the learning curve
so that every child enters the third grade knowing how
to read and feeling confident in comeable in a classroom
as their parents should feel confident and comfortable too, so
that they are writing their own story, They're writing their
(19:07):
own pathways, so that nobody else is writing it for them.
I know if that makes sense, Yeah, it does. And
then and then in connected to that is our program
called steam Stem plus Arts Learning Full Steam Ahead, the
idea of infusing the arts into various environments. We are
(19:27):
funded by PEPCO Echelon to really specifically in Prince George's County,
but we would like to expand that work on really
enhancing the learning in science, technology, engineering, the arts in
math by develop but also while simultaneously developing social emotional
learning skills. And then chart chart I've spoken with I've
(19:50):
spoken about quite a bit, but chart is really the
idea that you're charting a positive mental health pathway and
that is all ages, right, how do you chart your
own positive pathway? And finally, I think one I spoke
about earlier was the digital solutions that bridge the divide
and digital solutions that bridge the divide also has kind
(20:11):
of two elements to it. One is sort of our
fourteen and above population, and then we have what I
call stage stories, which are the seniors who might need
the digital solutions, but they also many seniors are very isolated.
It really helps them to feel connected to others, to
(20:33):
be able to tell stories. Sometimes because of sage stories,
a senior will tell me, you know, this is the
first time that I have found that other people actually
care about what I have to say.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Yeah, you know, one of the things that I'm taking
away from And I'm sure this was part of the
mandate that you had with your team when you started
this fifteen years ago, and then I've learned over the
years people want to be simply acknowledged and also but
you're also very inclusive with every demographic, which I know
is a wide net for you and your team, but
(21:11):
still whether it's young people or young adults, or adults
or older people, that net is really wide. And I'm
sure that was by your design. But it's ambitious too,
I imagine it.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Is, and it was interesting. We revisited our mission and
vision at this point three years ago, and then last
year we worked with a team of business leaders through
Compass pro Bono Services, and they supported our ability to
sort of develop a marketing plan, but also to actually
(21:43):
be able to develop our value statement. And if it's
okay with you, I'd like to read it because I believe,
yeah help people to understand. So our value statement says
our value proposition, which is Story Tapestries. Let me actually
correct that. So we worked with One of the things
that I think was really important for us is because
we are so huge, people have a hard time figuring
(22:06):
out what bucket do we fit in? Right? Wait you
do this? Wait you do that? Hold on, you serve
zero to one hundred and five. How And we worked
with Compass pro Bono Services to develop a marketing plan
as well as Capital I pro Bono Services, and they
helped us to develop our value proposition. I'd like to
(22:27):
read that because I think it will help to clarify
things for people. Story Tapestries addresses vital community issues from
millions of people of all ages and abilities, using collaboration
and the arts in all forms to create and deliver
tailored accessible programs. So it's the idea that we address
(22:48):
vital community issues for people of all ages and abilities,
and we do that through collaboration plus the arts to
deliver the programs, which means nothing is off the table
as long as we have the capacity to do it.
There was a point in our process in our history
(23:10):
where I didn't see us having the capacity to best
support individuals within the justice system, the criminal justice system,
either they had been in it or they had recently
left it. I reached out to our large network of artists,
our large network of alumni, of trainers of educators, and
(23:30):
discovered that we actually had within our network artists that
had quite a bit of experience. We had an educator
that I didn't know this, that she had been a
parole officer and she had worked within the justice system.
So we actually really worked over the last couple of
years to train our team and now we are actively
(23:50):
seeking funds and people are actively seeking us to be
able to support these kinds of programs. The key to
that is that we never just do something. We never
say yeah, we can solve that problem. We always first
ascertain whether or not we have the coright people, whether
or not we are being culturally responsive, whether or not
(24:13):
we are paying attention to the right services, the right
voice with the right partner.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Well, I appreciate you sharing all that, and I think
this is a good segue because we have about five
minutes left. I know that when it comes to being
a nonprofit, being partners and donations and volunteering, they're all
huge and in this iHeart ecosystem that we have with
this program. There's a lot of people that we get
very excited about nonprofits that are making a difference, like
you and your team out there. So with that said,
(24:42):
how are you funded and how can people be a
part of what you do?
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Absolutely so, people can send an email and the best
email to send it to would be an administrator at
signstorytapestries dot org. That will go to our operations director
who then disseminate it to the right person so we
can leverage you as a volunteer. You can also go
to our website www dot story tapestries dot org and
(25:11):
you can make a donation directly on that website. Now,
if you are someone who is economically challenged at the
moment and you cannot make a donation, you can, as
I mentioned, send that email and volunteer with us. In addition,
you could also make a donation of books. We're always
looking for individuals who who could give gently used books,
(25:35):
who could give art supplies, or could donate time and
of course treasure is always valued. If you'd like to
make a donation, as I mentioned, you can go to
our website and you can make a donation using that
donate button. If you would like us to come and
speak to your business about the work that we do,
(25:55):
or maybe do a professional development workshop for your business,
and in at the same time you make a donation
to us. That is something that we do often and
it's a great exchange. We recognize that businesses have needs
to and as a not for profit we can support you. Finally,
in the month of November, everyone was thinking of the
month of November and December as sort of those giving months, right,
(26:18):
and there's a lot of people asking you, the listener,
to give. Can you make a donation here? Could you
volunteer here? And yes, we will not argue. If you
want to give us a million dollars tomorrow, we would
happily take a million bucks.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Good for you.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
I happily take a million dollars. If you're like I
would like to hand you a million dollars. I will
not argue with you. However, I do and I do
think it is important that we give back to you.
So on December the second, on Giving Tuesday, every single year,
we keep an eye out on our website. We haven't
put it up just yet, but we will have the
(26:55):
ability for you to register to join us for an
hour life lunch time where you can laugh, listen to music,
hear stories. We on Giving Tuesday are going to give
back to you, the audience who gives to us every
day of the year. If you don't have the ability
(27:19):
to give monetarily but want your cup filled, join us
on Giving Tuesday for an hour of your time and
just listen and smile and laugh. Finally, I do think
it is important to recognize that everybody is looking for resources,
Dennis and resources to feed their belly, resources to fill
(27:41):
their mind, receister to fill their heart. Please keep an
eye out on our website. We are constantly putting resources
out there for parents, for educators, for business leaders. In
the next couple of weeks, in the next sort of
month or two, you will start to see more resources
(28:03):
available as we are going to be launching a new
website soon.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
How exciting and this.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
New website will make our resources, much more accessible to
the public and the community and easier for you to navigate.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Very good, and let's give the website addrest to everybody
one more time.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Yep. It is www dot story tapestries dot org. And
if you want to reach out to partner with us,
to work with us, to volunteer with us, please send
an email to administrator at story tapestries dot org. Or
if you're a phone person, you can always call our
office and leave a message, and that is three zero
(28:47):
one nine one six six three two eight.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Understanding well, Ariann, I'm so glad that we got to
feature story Tapestries for the first time on Community. You see,
I'm thrilled at what you and your team do. And
as I said a litle bit early in our conversation,
you have cast a wide net, but it sounds like
you're knocking out of the park. I know you're working
really hard to make it all work for everybody out there.
So thank you so much for all that you and
your team do, and we really appreciate you joining us
on the show.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Thank you so much. We appreciate this opportunity.
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Good morning, and welcome to another edition of Community DC.
I'm your host Dennis Glasgow. This morning, we welcome to
the program for the first time Ariana Ross. She is
the founder and CEO for Story Tapestries, a nonprofit in Washington,
d C. That uses arts to foster inclusion, personal growth,
and community development by providing performances, workshops, and residencies. It
(00:23):
partners with schools and communities to develop programs for people
of all ages that focus on areas like literacy, workforce development,
and mental health. Here's my conversation with Ariana. I hope
you enjoy it as much as I did.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Good morning, Ariana, Good morning.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Well, it is great to have you for the first
time on Community DC and I am stoked to talk
to you about all the amazing things that you've done
over the last fifteen years with Story Tapestries. And I
have a feeling that our audience and myself are going
to be introduced through a lot of cool things that
you and your team do. But I think we should
start from the beginning of fifteen years ago because I
always love to find out about origin stories, about why
(00:59):
somebody comes up with an idea, especially nonprofit, because we
know in this program. It's not easy to start a
nonprofit and then keep it going for as long as
you had the last fifteen years. So can you tell
us about the origin stories, about why you started story
You asked.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
About our origin story, and I think it is really
important to understand that for us, it was about the
need before we were not for rovit. I've actually been
doing this work for twenty six years, and before we
were not for profit, I found myself ariana Ross, kind
of by my lonesome, coming upon schools, libraries, community centers
(01:34):
that couldn't afford my services. I was working with another organization.
I was a storyteller. I was a writer, I was
an educator, I was a performer. I was doing all
the things that Story Tapestries now does. But I was
frustrated because people couldn't afford my services. And when I
would say, well, what do you mean you can't afford that?
And I would go all right, and I would go
(01:55):
to a local business and I'd say, to local business,
here's what I need you to do. You know that
you have the funds, could you give the money to
the school the library. They will then give the money
to the organization. I was working for and then that
organization would pay me. That's a little ridiculous. It was
probably about I would say, eight years into this that
(02:16):
someone came up to me and said, Ariana, you should
found a not for profit. Essentially, you are basically doing
exactly what a not for profit would do, except that
you don't have a board, a team, a staff to
support you. And my first response was no, I don't
want that. That's a lot of work. But eventually they
(02:37):
convinced me and they helped me to understand. And one
of our very first employees as a not for profit
was a woman, Lorian Beal's. Laurian is now the vice
president of the organization and our chief development officer. She
is my right hand and my left hand, and it
(02:59):
really you know, she has been along the journey with
me the entire time, and it truly came. In the beginning.
We had a budget, if you're not gonna believe this,
of ten thousand dollars a budget, wow. And now we're
a little over a million and we're growing, and it
really all starts with the need. In the very beginning,
we're very clear one hundred percent of our programs need
(03:24):
to be free to the community. That doesn't mean that
the community can't apply for a grant, they can't fundraise,
they can't do all that they need to do to
get the money. But we will help them. If they
don't have the ability to write a grant, we will
write a grant with them. And then we just want
to make sure that individuals have access to programs whenever possible.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Well, let's do this before we talk about all the
many things that you and your team do for the community.
It really is extraordinary. I always like to talk and
ask about mission and vision and what are those now.
They might have changed over fifteen years, but as you said,
turned it out to where you are today. What our
mission and vision for Story Tapestries.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
I think that what is key about our mission and
our vision is that we are really what we call
a communications organization and an arts service organization, which essentially
means is that we use the arts as a tool
to solve community problems. So any community problem can be
solved with the right tools in place. Correct. Yeah, and
(04:25):
so if you are hungry and you are dealing with
food insecurity, but you don't have access to the economic
means to battle that, well, how do you do that? Well,
you need a job, or you need to increase your pay.
So that's where story tapestries. We provide tools that allow
people to be able to increase their economic means, or
(04:46):
meet their goals, or or or to solve a problem.
That's one of our big values and our vision. Really
what has always been focused on, how do we put
the tools in the hands of those who needed So
all of our programs are custom designed for the community.
We don't say we have the answers. We always say
(05:08):
that the community has the answers. They come to us,
and then we custom design what are the tools in
our toolbox that we can use to be able to
support that. Initially part of our vision was to create
a network of individuals who believed in the power of
the arts to change community. But I have to say
(05:29):
we did that and five years ago we looked around
and we realized, oh my goodness, we have this beautiful network.
Now we need to put this network tease.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
And I should also say, with you talking about that,
you obviously made it. I don't know if it was
a major league pivot, but you had to grow and
to grow that's what you did.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Absolutely we grew, and we one of the ways in
which we grew is we actually now have two entities
under the same umber. We have Story Tapestries Incorporated, which
serves Maryland Northern Virginia and it does do some national work.
And then we actually recently in the last year, created
(06:11):
Story Tapestries of Washington, d C, which makes it easier
for us to serve Washington DC directly, partner with business leaders,
community members, the library system. We do a lot of
programming with the DC Public Library System, but having a
DC entity as well as a Maryland entity, it creates
(06:35):
a platform by which we can better serve and support
and collaborate with the community outstanding.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Well, listen, I want to really get a knee deep
into all the programs and things that you offer, and
we're going to find about how you make your money
and how people can donate and volunteer, and also your partners,
because I know partners are a real big deal, especially
when it comes to public schools and other entities out there.
But what that said, I think we got everybody's attention
about kind of the cool things that you do, Arianna.
So what that said, is there a criteria when somebody
(07:04):
wants to work with Story tapestries, whether it's a child
or a young adult, and how do they, you know,
start the process about working with you. What is the
criteria to working with you guys?
Speaker 2 (07:14):
So it is one hundred percent need based, meaning that
and right now and across the board, I would say
needs are ever changing. Right so, we have pressing needs
that we are really looking to address early childhood educations,
sort of gap in the requirements, pay rates for early
childhood educators, disparity of services, while simultaneously we also work
(07:38):
with seniors on the isolation of seniors. In addition, I
don't know if you're familiar with the social determinants of health.
The social determinants of health include mental health and well being,
education from sort of zero all the way on up,
as well as workforce development and community safety. It oftentimes
(07:59):
is someone will come to us and they'll say, we
have this gap, we have this issue, we have this concern.
We are looking for a collaborator, a partner to fill
that gap. I'm going to use a beautiful example of
Montgomery County Coalition for the Homeless. They have a men's
shelter and a family shelter, and we provide programming specifically
(08:21):
to their men's shelter, and our programming has changed based
on their requests. So we have a consistent program which
is our Digital Literacy program, which is digital solutions that
bridge the divide. We are always looking for speakers to
that program as well as funders. Comcast m is one
of our primary funders of that as well as Adobe.
(08:43):
And for that program, the men receive digital skills and
public speaking skills as well as financial literacy skills in
order for them to be able to get a job,
and it is artists that actually provide those skills to
them to help them feel more confident. A prime example
of success is one man. He had only come to
(09:05):
one workshop, and normally people come consistently to many workshops.
He came to one workshop and then a few weeks
later he came back just grinning ear to ear. He
had told us that because of the workshop, this was
a man who had been homeless for quite some time,
he had had a stroke. He did not feel confident
(09:26):
about his public speaking abilities, his ability to enunciate his
words effectively, but because of the public speaking workshop, he
had been able to do an excellent job in an
interview process and he had a job that's huge, and
it was. It was huge at the same time, right,
(09:47):
we also in the same entity. We worked with them
to beautify their space. We worked with a funder. The
men took photographs, beautiful photographs of themselves. But also I've
just kind of they took art and they really like
changed it and transformed. Maybe they took a picture of
one of them like looking up and they put a
(10:08):
background behind it, and then they use that art to
beautify their wellness room. And I have watched the men
walk into that space and their entire body language changes
when they see the artwork on the walls. Now you
go from there to a school, right, I can't tell
you I am the CEO. I still go into schools
(10:30):
and communities. I myself, I am a storyteller and a dancer
and a consultant. I partner with business leaders and community members.
But now I get the honor of going in and
seeing our forty plus artists out in the community, our staff,
our mighty staff of seven that is ever growing. And
I have had teachers, community members walk up and give
(10:53):
me the biggest hug and mentioned me you know, I
was feeling fed, And then your artist came in and
worked with my little people, and I saw how they
started to pay attention to more. They began to develop vocabulary.
A child who'd never spoken before was suddenly making noise
and speaking. Thank you for reminding me why I became
(11:17):
a teacher in the first place. At a time that
is really frustrating and difficult, I needed this reminder. Wow,
And I think that is that is really key or
seniors who will say to you, you know, I wasn't
sure how to communicate with my grandchildren and my children
they don't live here. Learning how to take photographs and
(11:39):
then send the photograph as like an album or a
little film might seem like easy to as they put it,
to a twenty somethingter or a teenager, but for me,
who was ninety four years old, it allowed me to
feel like I mattered again.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
You know.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
The one thing that I'm gathering before side the incredible
thing of the arts that we're going to talk more about,
that's really in your wheelhouse along with your team. But
I'm also learning along with our audience here, is that
you're giving real world issues people access to it so
they can do what you and I might think is
pretty simple, but they don't know how to do that,
and now they can execute that and feel really great
(12:18):
about themselves and maybe even get a job. Like you
told that's incredible.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
And it is really about practical solutions. Right. You obviously
are very confident in communicating, right that you're on radio,
That is not a worrior or a concern for many people. Communication.
How do you write an email? How do you tell
a story? How do you advocate your child is struggling
in school? How do you advocate? Recently, Washington Gas sponsored
(12:48):
story type issues. They came on as a sponsor and
they asked us to come in and we worked with
I believe is twelve different small businesses and we actually
work with these small businesses on how to communicate their
story had increased the return on their investment. And at first,
(13:09):
I'm not going to lie to you, who was hard
I was. I said to my team, this is not
going to be easy. These were contractors, plumbers, pipe layers,
They're not artists, and yet we got them to write
an eleven word poem called a Loon. We got them
to tell stories. And one woman who was a woman
(13:29):
owned contractor and construction worker walked out of there and
she said to me, you know, I now understand the
power of my words to be able to win a contract.
And I recognize the fact that she one of her
sort of high important principles was that she hires individuals
with intellectual and developmental disabilities, not necessarily to be the
(13:52):
lead on a project, but to support the project. And
she had first told me, all, I don't have a
story to tell. I'm just a contractor. Everybody's a contractor
in this room. I asked her, though, what makes you unique,
my team explainer, Whatever makes you unique is what's going
to sell you that's going to help you win that contract.
(14:13):
And I think that's really critical. Whether you are a
younger person trying to learn how to navigate the world
and ultimately either go to college or get a job right,
or you're someone who was in the job force but
now lost your job because of a health reason, or
because of an environmental reason, or because of financial reasons.
You know, you need to have the ability to communicate
(14:36):
your vision and what makes you a unique individual. And
I think that's critical. I will tell you there's one
element aspect that people don't think about that is a
very practical piece of the puzzle. We over the last
I would say three years. Since twenty twenty two, we
(14:57):
began working with psychologists and therapists and offering our team trainings.
When you walk into a room where there are individuals
dealing with serious mental health issues, how do you navigate that?
And we are not, So we have therapists that we
(15:19):
contract with that if we find that we really need
that serious therapeutic partnership, we have the ability to sort
of make that happen. And I think that's a really
critical piece of the puzzle and a critical tool that
we leverage and that we utilize because we recognize that
artists are not therapists. However, there's a gray area of
(15:43):
Oftentimes they walk into a room, be it with a
business leader or a two year old, and that individual
is dealing with a mental health crisis. They're dealing with depression,
they're dealing with stress, they're dealing with burnout, worries that
maybe they shouldn't Maybe they're a five year old and
(16:03):
their family is currently homeless. There was a young man
he was in the third grade and his family had
been homeless for approximately a month. They were living in
a hotel and the school said, you know, he has
not stayed in the classroom for but five minutes a day.
(16:26):
He consistently leaves and has him out down. It was
just stress. Our team met, we really brainstormed what could
we do, how could we help him. We have on
staff individuals Jamie Cowan who has a master's degree in education,
Jessica Wallach who is an accessibility specialist, doctor Sue Snyder
(16:50):
who's a reading specialists was on our board as a
past board member, Valley bous Slausburg, Jikibiko. We all met
and we thought, all right, what can we do to
help this young man? And we worked with the teacher
to give the teacher the tools that she needed and
success looked like We stayed in the room and he
(17:11):
participated in writing a story and he completed the tasks
he was required to complete for forty five minutes.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
And I know for some people that might be like, well,
a child should stay in the classroom because that's it. Yes,
I'm not disagreeing with you, but you have to understand
when a child or an adult is facing trauma. There's
actually a neurologist explain this to me. Their brain pattern
shifts and they just don't have the capacity to be
able to stay put to listen. Their body and their
(17:46):
adrenal glands causes them to panic and they just fly
or you know, fight or flight, or they get angry
and they start to fight, even though what they really
need to do is take a breath.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Well, that's one of those stories when I ask people,
you know, why do you get up in the morning,
and those are one of the ones. You know, this
is why we get up to make a difference. That's
an extraordinary story. I do want to talk about some
other programs, and I know that it would dominate the
whole podcast for thirty minutes that we talked about all
the incredible programs you do, but maybe some that you're
most proud of or have been the most effective. By
the ones you've already mentioned, can you, for our audience
(18:20):
talk about a couple more that really, you know, kind
of hit the nail on the head.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Absolutely. So. We have our program called Write Your Story
Right Your Story is about building foundational literacy skills for
individuals zero through age seven seven eight, and we also
work with professional development workshops for the teachers that are
supporting those children. The idea being that we really need
(18:46):
to combat and I say combat because sometimes it feels
like a little bit of a fight the learning curve
so that every child enters the third grade knowing how
to read and feeling confident in comeable in a classroom
as their parents should feel confident and comfortable too, so
that they are writing their own story, They're writing their
(19:07):
own pathways, so that nobody else is writing it for them.
I know if that makes sense, Yeah, it does. And
then and then in connected to that is our program
called steam Stem plus Arts Learning Full Steam Ahead, the
idea of infusing the arts into various environments. We are
(19:27):
funded by PEPCO Echelon to really specifically in Prince George's County,
but we would like to expand that work on really
enhancing the learning in science, technology, engineering, the arts in
math by develop but also while simultaneously developing social emotional
learning skills. And then chart chart I've spoken with I've
(19:50):
spoken about quite a bit, but chart is really the
idea that you're charting a positive mental health pathway and
that is all ages, right, how do you chart your
own positive pathway? And finally, I think one I spoke
about earlier was the digital solutions that bridge the divide
and digital solutions that bridge the divide also has kind
(20:11):
of two elements to it. One is sort of our
fourteen and above population, and then we have what I
call stage stories, which are the seniors who might need
the digital solutions, but they also many seniors are very isolated.
It really helps them to feel connected to others, to
(20:33):
be able to tell stories. Sometimes because of sage stories,
a senior will tell me, you know, this is the
first time that I have found that other people actually
care about what I have to say.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Yeah, you know, one of the things that I'm taking
away from And I'm sure this was part of the
mandate that you had with your team when you started
this fifteen years ago, and then I've learned over the
years people want to be simply acknowledged and also but
you're also very inclusive with every demographic, which I know
is a wide net for you and your team, but
(21:11):
still whether it's young people or young adults, or adults
or older people, that net is really wide. And I'm
sure that was by your design. But it's ambitious too,
I imagine it.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Is, and it was interesting. We revisited our mission and
vision at this point three years ago, and then last
year we worked with a team of business leaders through
Compass pro Bono Services, and they supported our ability to
sort of develop a marketing plan, but also to actually
(21:43):
be able to develop our value statement. And if it's
okay with you, I'd like to read it because I believe,
yeah help people to understand. So our value statement says
our value proposition, which is Story Tapestries. Let me actually
correct that. So we worked with One of the things
that I think was really important for us is because
we are so huge, people have a hard time figuring
(22:06):
out what bucket do we fit in? Right? Wait you
do this? Wait you do that? Hold on, you serve
zero to one hundred and five. How And we worked
with Compass pro Bono Services to develop a marketing plan
as well as Capital I pro Bono Services, and they
helped us to develop our value proposition. I'd like to
(22:27):
read that because I think it will help to clarify
things for people. Story Tapestries addresses vital community issues from
millions of people of all ages and abilities, using collaboration
and the arts in all forms to create and deliver
tailored accessible programs. So it's the idea that we address
(22:48):
vital community issues for people of all ages and abilities,
and we do that through collaboration plus the arts to
deliver the programs, which means nothing is off the table
as long as we have the capacity to do it.
There was a point in our process in our history
(23:10):
where I didn't see us having the capacity to best
support individuals within the justice system, the criminal justice system,
either they had been in it or they had recently
left it. I reached out to our large network of artists,
our large network of alumni, of trainers of educators, and
(23:30):
discovered that we actually had within our network artists that
had quite a bit of experience. We had an educator
that I didn't know this, that she had been a
parole officer and she had worked within the justice system.
So we actually really worked over the last couple of
years to train our team and now we are actively
(23:50):
seeking funds and people are actively seeking us to be
able to support these kinds of programs. The key to
that is that we never just do something. We never
say yeah, we can solve that problem. We always first
ascertain whether or not we have the coright people, whether
or not we are being culturally responsive, whether or not
(24:13):
we are paying attention to the right services, the right
voice with the right partner.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Well, I appreciate you sharing all that, and I think
this is a good segue because we have about five
minutes left. I know that when it comes to being
a nonprofit, being partners and donations and volunteering, they're all
huge and in this iHeart ecosystem that we have with
this program. There's a lot of people that we get
very excited about nonprofits that are making a difference, like
you and your team out there. So with that said,
(24:42):
how are you funded and how can people be a
part of what you do?
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Absolutely so, people can send an email and the best
email to send it to would be an administrator at
signstorytapestries dot org. That will go to our operations director
who then disseminate it to the right person so we
can leverage you as a volunteer. You can also go
to our website www dot story tapestries dot org and
(25:11):
you can make a donation directly on that website. Now,
if you are someone who is economically challenged at the
moment and you cannot make a donation, you can, as
I mentioned, send that email and volunteer with us. In addition,
you could also make a donation of books. We're always
looking for individuals who who could give gently used books,
(25:35):
who could give art supplies, or could donate time and
of course treasure is always valued. If you'd like to
make a donation, as I mentioned, you can go to
our website and you can make a donation using that
donate button. If you would like us to come and
speak to your business about the work that we do,
(25:55):
or maybe do a professional development workshop for your business,
and in at the same time you make a donation
to us. That is something that we do often and
it's a great exchange. We recognize that businesses have needs
to and as a not for profit we can support you. Finally,
in the month of November, everyone was thinking of the
month of November and December as sort of those giving months, right,
(26:18):
and there's a lot of people asking you, the listener,
to give. Can you make a donation here? Could you
volunteer here? And yes, we will not argue. If you
want to give us a million dollars tomorrow, we would
happily take a million bucks.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Good for you.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
I happily take a million dollars. If you're like I
would like to hand you a million dollars. I will
not argue with you. However, I do and I do
think it is important that we give back to you.
So on December the second, on Giving Tuesday, every single year,
we keep an eye out on our website. We haven't
put it up just yet, but we will have the
(26:55):
ability for you to register to join us for an
hour life lunch time where you can laugh, listen to music,
hear stories. We on Giving Tuesday are going to give
back to you, the audience who gives to us every
day of the year. If you don't have the ability
(27:19):
to give monetarily but want your cup filled, join us
on Giving Tuesday for an hour of your time and
just listen and smile and laugh. Finally, I do think
it is important to recognize that everybody is looking for resources,
Dennis and resources to feed their belly, resources to fill
(27:41):
their mind, receister to fill their heart. Please keep an
eye out on our website. We are constantly putting resources
out there for parents, for educators, for business leaders. In
the next couple of weeks, in the next sort of
month or two, you will start to see more resources
(28:03):
available as we are going to be launching a new
website soon.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
How exciting and this.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
New website will make our resources, much more accessible to
the public and the community and easier for you to navigate.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Very good, and let's give the website addrest to everybody
one more time.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Yep. It is www dot story tapestries dot org. And
if you want to reach out to partner with us,
to work with us, to volunteer with us, please send
an email to administrator at story tapestries dot org. Or
if you're a phone person, you can always call our
office and leave a message, and that is three zero
(28:47):
one nine one six six three two eight.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Understanding well, Ariann, I'm so glad that we got to
feature story Tapestries for the first time on Community. You see,
I'm thrilled at what you and your team do. And
as I said a litle bit early in our conversation,
you have cast a wide net, but it sounds like
you're knocking out of the park. I know you're working
really hard to make it all work for everybody out there.
So thank you so much for all that you and
your team do, and we really appreciate you joining us
on the show.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Thank you so much. We appreciate this opportunity.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
Don't let biased algorithms or degree screens or exclusive professional
networks or stereotypes. Don't let anything keep you from discovering
the half of the workforce who are stars. Workers skilled
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to tear the paper ceiling and see the stars beyond it.
(29:37):
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Speaker 2 (29:48):
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Speaker 3 (29:55):
Learn more at che can Stems, a message brought to
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