Briarpatch Youth Services is getting set to host its 5th annual Youth Arts Festival, intended to bring community members together and provide youth an opportunity to display their artwork.
The festival will take place on Saturday, July 29, noon-4 p.m. at 2720 Rimrock Rd. in Fitchburg. Ian Carter, Chief Development Officer at Briarpatch Youth Services, talked with Madison365 about what participants and attendees can expect from the event.
“The reason why it was originally created was to give youth a platform. It’s broken down into two different aspects,’ Carter said. “We give them a platform to display their visual arts and their performing arts. So we have a stage set up. We have everything from young people who do spoken word, who play the violin, who do magic tricks, some rap, some sing, they dance, all those physical artistic expressions.
“They have the opportunity to perform on stage. On the other end of the grounds, we have set up a gallery. Those are for more of the physical representations of art including the paintings, the sculptures, and the different art mediums that can be set up and displayed in a gallery style.”
Sign up to participate in the festival through completing the event registration form. Carter compared the event to an open house, explaining how there will be a lot of opportunities for community members to connect at the event.
“It’s an opportunity for us to introduce the community to resources and services that we have here in-house with Briarpatch,” he said. “It also allows them to be introduced to other community partners that we’ll have here representing their services and resources. Just showing people how collaborative the community really can be in solving everyday problems.”
Carter expressed excitement for youth to be able to express themselves and their talents through this event. He is also glad this event will provide parents and families the opportunity to access resources and support from other organizations at the festival as well.
“We also understand the importance of supporting those who support the youth or young people,” Carter said. “We want to be able to have those parents be able to come out, and not only see their youth and other youth participate, but also be able to get some substantive resources and services that can help them deal with some of these stresses.”
Briarpatch hosts this event annually with the hopes of bringing community members together and providing support. Carter and his team are looking forward to this event and being able to help attendees however they can.
“Our mission is to strengthen the lives of youth and their families,” Carter said. “As well as just knowing that we are a community entity here that we’ve been here since 1971. We’ve always been focused on helping the most vulnerable members of our community. With the help of our community, we can lift up the entire community by helping out those who are most vulnerable.”
To learn more about the Briarpatch Youth Arts Festival and ways to get involved, contact: [email protected] or [email protected].
