Art Works Now and Community Crisis Center’s art-making sessions with homeless youth and seniors

November 2025

Art Works Now (AWN) is a women-led nonprofit with a mission to build and nurture community through inclusive visual arts and social justice experiences. For 15 years, we’ve provided accessible, high-quality visual arts programming to children, teens, adults, and older adults throughout Prince George’s County, Northeast DC, and the broader DMV. We believe art is more than expression, it’s a tool for social change, healing, and connection. Guided by compassion, equity, inclusion, integrity, and joy, we reduce economic barriers to art education and foster accountable, lasting relationships with the communities we serve. Our ADA-accessible studio is a welcoming space where creativity becomes a catalyst for growth. We serve a diverse population that includes individuals with disabilities, older adults on fixed incomes, and families from under-resourced communities. More than teaching art, our programs unlock potential, cultivate empathy, and ease loneliness, offering vital social support and fostering resilience. AWN will continue the successful partnership with Community Crisis Services, Inc. (CCSI), which provides compassionate crisis support through its hotline, safe shelter programs, and referral services. We will offer four monthly sessions (following grant notification) welcoming homeless youth from the Prince George’s County Warm Nights Shelter into our studios for afternoons of creative exploration. Joined by older adults (55+) from our Creative Aging program, these intergenerational gatherings will use art to spark connection across age and life experience. Participants will leave with finished artwork and an art kit for continued creativity. This project embodies our mission and values by offering a joyful, inclusive, and healing experience to all participants.

Our Tour de Force is the belief that the visual arts have the power to transform lives and strengthen communities. We are motivated by a deep commitment to creating inclusive, welcoming spaces where people of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities can connect, heal, and express themselves. What drives us is seeing how art reduces isolation, builds confidence, and sparks understanding across differences.

At Art Works Now, we work to break down economic, physical, and social barriers so that everyone has access to high-quality arts experiences. Our passion comes from the joy that emerges when people gather to create, share stories, and learn from one another in an environment grounded in compassion, equity, and creativity.

Across all of our programs, we use art as a bridge that brings individuals and communities together. Whether participants are children discovering their creative voices, adults returning to art after many years, or older adults seeking connection and growth, we strive to offer experiences that foster resilience and a deep sense of belonging. Ultimately, we hope to impart to our community a belief in their own creative potential and a sense of shared humanity that continues long after they leave our studio.