about our mission
Supporting Healing Through The Arts
Our mission is to create and support initiatives that expand general awareness about art and healing with the intent of bringing healing to the individual and the community through the arts and humanities. Through research, investigation and critical thinking about the relationship between art and healing we strive to make this knowledge available to the entire community. And to further our mission, we develop and support programs that explore ways in which the arts and humanities can support the healing process across the arts (dance, visual arts, music, poetry and more) through events, workshops, art exhibitions, conferences, classes and other cultural programming to act as a resource and support in addressing specific concerns of health, economics, aging, and housing in our communities.
Support Our Festival
To receive a copy of our sponsorship package, please contact Gwen Black, Festival Creator, please email gwenblackarts@yahoo.com or contact 212-665-5313. Thank you!
Our Beginning
Additional Information
Sugar Hill was founded by Yvonne Stafford, Joel Washington and Leroy Washington at Hunter College, CUNY in 1977. It was formed with the idea of raising the consciousness of college students to community concerns and conditions and creating outlets such as interviews, cultural programs and a newspaper called the Communicator. During this time, we also operated the Cultural Enrichment Gallery out of the ground floor of a brownstone on 108th Street and Broadway for 20 years.
Since this time, our mission has been focused on healing arts and have worked to demonstrate the synergistic relationship between healing and the arts. Over the years we have produced cultural programming such as art openings, lectures, and classes in every category including, visual art, poetry, music, food preparation, healing arts, dance, and other forms of expression. We partner with organizations that align with this mission. A few of our partners included the West Side Arts Coalition, Jesse Hamilton’s Mambo Fanatics and most currently the Natural Living Institute and Arts and Jazzfest NYC™️ Aside from program development, as a 501 (c) 3 not for profit organization over the years we serve as a fiscal conduit to enable individual artists and arts groups to have access to grants and other forms of sponsorship under our umbrella.
501 (c) 3 Organization
Our work and focus on the arts over these many years has served to demonstrate the synergistic relationship between healing and the arts.