Mendocino Coast 100 Women Strong donates $10,000 to Art Explorers
CASPAR, CA >> On Thursday, April 18, the Mendocino Coast 100 Women Strong came together for its third round of funding for a selected nonprofit. 100 Women Strong is a grassroots movement of “collective impact giving” focused on improving the lives of community members.
The three nonprofits selected to present in this round were Mendo Latino of public radio KZYX, Art Explorers based in Fort Bragg, and the Kelley House Museum in Mendocino. A $10,000 donation “with no strings attached” would be awarded to one of them.
These choices resulted from member recommendations provided at the end of the second round gathering last October. Group members voted after each presentation, followed by question and answer sessions.
The vote went to Art Explorers of Fort Bragg, which received the established amount of $10,000. Since $19,000 had been raised in this round, Mendo Latino and Kelley House Museum took home $4,500 each.
The event in Caspar was well attended with standing room only. Co-Directors Loreto Rojas and Diana Coryat of Mendo Latino of KZYX presented first, describing their goals and achievements to date.
Mendo Latino offers public radio programming for the Latinx community on the coast and beyond. Since 2019, the community-based organization has offered Spanish-language public affairs radio programs twice a month. They aim to “make visible the voices, histories, cultures, and perspectives of the local Latinx community.”
Besides radio, the organization works in various formats such as video, podcast, and oral history storytelling. A critical project, Making History/Haciendo Historía: Latinx in Mendocino, began in 2022.
After pointing out the large population of Latinx families in the county, many already into their fourth generation, the co-directors expressed the need to include their history in the story of Mendocino County.
Rojas noted, ” Latinos make up about a third of the population in our county, and fifty percent of our children in the schools are Latino.” She added, “We, too, have stories of survival and resilience and are proud of them.”
The Co-Directors hope to use the funds to finance seven audio stories “of people who have shaped our economy and culture for decades.” Coryat said, “Our long-term goal is to record and preserve one hundred hours of stories that will be made available to local schools, museums, and historical societies.”
These audios will be broadcast on local and national radio and in podcast form. Rojas introduced the woman in the first audio, Teresa Rodriguez, a local teacher. Mendo Latino also plans to train interviewers to expand the project in the future.
Board Member Erin Brazill presented next for Art Explorers. Located on Franklin Street in Fort Bragg, Art Explorers serves 36 adults with developmental disabilities or brain injuries in an art studio full of multi-media supplies and instructors to enhance their skills.
The nonprofit receives funds from the federal and state governments, but the amount of funds is based on attendance. The board, along with Co-Directors Maria Trombetta and Sabine Brunner, has managed to remain open on a shoestring budget that does not cover all its costs.
Artists at Art Explorers sell their work, and the Franklin Street site has a small gallery at the front entry. Artists receive 50% of the sales of their works. The nonprofit prides itself on providing a “fun, nurturing, non-judgmental and artistically stimulating environment for creativity to thrive.”
Brazill noted, “In mainstream culture, it can be hard to hear the voices of the disabled. Their perspectives are often misunderstood or even ignored. Art Explorers,” she added, “offers them the space to display their artwork, and creative joy abounds.”
Brazill asked the audience to remember the last time they created art and the feeling of creating. She then told the story of a longtime client who had been unable to attend due to an injury that Art Explorers could not accommodate.
Brazil introduced a few of the Art Explorer artists to the audience and then explained to the voters how the nonprofit would use the donation if awarded.
Money would be spent on ergonomic chairs, footrests, and chair cushions and on creating modified desks and standing tables “so everybody can do art the way that feels best for their particular bodies.”
She added, “Together we can do this.” Board Vice President Tracy Daly then answered questions from the audience.
Director Anne Semans of the Kelley House Museum was the final presenter before voting. Although the nonprofit operates with a large footprint in Mendocino and beyond, it operates with a very small staff, including Marguerite O'Brien, its archivist.
The Kelley House regularly provides new historical presentations and displays for the public. Semans highlighted the current display, an idea triggered by local high school students.
In her presentation, she focused on the unmeasurable value of local history for the younger generations. She then told the audience about the current exhibit on Nathaniel Smith, who arrived in Mendocino in 1851.
Over fifty years, Smith thrived and raised a family with six children. His obituary said that “he was known to every man, woman, and child on the coast.” However, there is no memorial of his life in Mendocino. He does not even have a gravestone marker in Hillcrest Cemetery.
Semans explained that the exhibit originated from local students' interest in Black Lives Matter a few years ago. She said, “They wanted to know what it was like for a black man on the coast during the Gold Rush era.”
She described Smith's life as “one of remarkable resilience” in a time when “he could not vote. He could not marry a white person, and he could not testify against a white person in court.”
Semans then tied this story to the key question of why history matters. Her favorite answer is, “The longer we are here, the more we are of this place.”
She explained, “We feel belonging when we see ourselves reflected in a place. Stories like Nathaniel's evoke a truer history of all our identities and evolve our identity as a community so that we all feel like we belong.”
A donation from the audience group would allow the museum to pursue five more stories “that are less visible” and “take effort to research.” For Nathaniel's story, the museum received a California Humanities grant to hire a researcher.
For more information, Google 100 Women Strong Mendocino Coast, which is also on the Community Foundation of Mendocino County website. 100% of all donations go to the recipients.