RedLine is a proud partner and administrator of the Arts in Society grant. This collaborative program provides grants to both individuals and organizations that use art as a vehicle to promote social justice and community welfare.
We love highlighting our Arts in Society (AiS) grant recipients and all the unique and impactful projects made possible by their grant.
We’re excited continue this series with the 2025 Arts in Society Grantee: Sidewalk Poets.
Learn more about Sidewalk Poets and their Arts in Society project Globeville StoryWalk, a project that seeks to support residents in feeling seen and heard in their community, and to preserve the stories and authentic voice of a rapidly gentrifying area.
Tell us about your organization
Sidewalk Poets is a Denver nonprofit providing direct service to underserved and under-resourced communities and individuals through creative writing and storytelling workshops that support mental health and wellness, resilience, self-awareness and self-esteem.
Through radical self-reflective and empowering storytelling, workshop participants process trauma and pain, access empathy, foster community, and deepen their sense of identity and belonging.
With the help of these workshops, participants are better able to move through mental and behavioral health struggles and develop self-confidence and a sense of purpose—which supports their ability to cope with stressors, make better decisions and be more successful in day-to-day life.
Sidewalk Poets’ writing workshops employ self-expression and arts education as mental health resources, to support participants with mental health and substance misuse challenges. Through these workshops, participants create a community of support, healing and resilience.
Sidewalk Poets’ co-founders are both professional writers with two-decades experience each teaching creative writing and storytelling, primarily to underserved communities.
They have worked with formerly incarcerated populations, people in recovery, unhoused people and those dealing with poverty, Title-1 school free-and-reduced-lunch students and parents, refugee and immigrant families, LGBTQIA+ young adults, cancer patients, pregnant teens, survivors of domestic violence and sexual abuse, medical providers and staff, and disadvantaged youth.
It is our mission to address the inequities baked into the system through historical trauma and oppression by bringing the mental health resource of the creative arts and arts education to the places and populations least likely to have access to it–and where it is needed most.
It is also our mission to elevate and amplify the voices most impacted by structural inequity to bring greater social awareness and change.
At Sidewalk Poets, we believe that every voice has value, and every story deserves to be told—and heard. Stories create empathy and foster community.
When we hear another person’s story, we live with them—we cross the divide, no matter how wide, to witness our shared humanity. And when we tell our stories, we process past pain and the burden of aloneness—freeing us to experience greater resilience, healing, acceptance and confidence.
Tell us about your first project that will utilize your Arts in Society Grant
The Arts in Society Colorado artist grant will be used to create, implement, and install the Globeville StoryWalk.
The Globeville StoryWalk is a two-fold project comprising storytelling workshops and public art. Local Globeville residents will participate in storytelling and creative writing workshops, where they will create writings, stories and poems about their lives and personal experiences.
The writings from all of these workshops will then be used to create an interactive public art installation: The Globeville StoryWalk. The text art will be displayed throughout the neighborhood on utility boxes, and printed onto street signs.
“The goal is for residents to feel seen and heard in their own community, as well as preserve the stories and authentic voice of a rapidly gentrifying area. ”
This interactive experience allows people to read and absorb these stories. Work will be displayed in both English and Spanish, as well as any other home languages which participants speak.
Through the Arts in Society grant, we have been able to continue and expand the current programming that we run with Mile High Behavioral Healthcare at their 4242 Delaware location within the Globeville neighborhood, working with adults coming out of incarceration and in recovery and treatment for substance misuse and mental health challenges.
Within this partnership, we currently run workshops for a group of postpartum and pregnant mothers, a Healthy Relationships Group, and a group for Men in Recovery. This grant has helped us as to expand this work to include two additional women’s groups: Women in Recovery and Women’s Miracles Group. Additional workshop participants will also include local youth who are part of the apprentice program at Prodigy Coffeehouse’s Globeville and Birdseed Collective.
Through the Arts in Society grant, we will be able to offer a 6-week self-expression and self-awareness workshop that will empower neighborhood apprentices to realize their inherent greatness, build teamwork, foster belonging and teach them how to tell their story and use it to their advantage. At the end of the workshop, participants will have the opportunity to read their writings at the Globeville Fall Festival.
The idea for this project stems from a previous StoryWalk we implemented in the East Colfax Neighborhood in partnership with Ashley Elementary School (students, parents and staff) and Spring Institute for Intercultural Learning.
The East Colfax StoryWalk was met with such joy for its celebration of community and voice that we started talking with other nonprofit organizations in the GES community about potentially creating a StoryWalk in their neighborhood.
What’s next in the pipeline for your organization? What other projects are you dreaming up for next year, and how will your Arts in Society grant help to support these efforts?
We are super excited to finish the Globeville StoryWalk installation so that Globeville residents and neighbors can connect through local story. This work fuels so much of the empowering and connective work that we do throughout the city. We are excited to use this installation as a catalyst for more voice and connection.
Moving forward, we are starting to train previous workshop participants to lead workshops. We are quickly finding that the demand for programming is growing at a speed where we need more facilitators. We are excited that these facilitators will stem from the groups and communities that they will serve.
What was your experience like when applying for an Arts in Society grant? What tips would you share with artists looking to apply?
Applying for the Arts in Society Colorado art grant helped us to solidify our vision and the purpose of this project.
While applications can be a lot of work, with this one in particular, we felt each step in the process truly helped us to learn and question the true mission behind this work.
Arts in Society Grantee Project Highlight: áyA Con
Learn more about Create ayA and how their project áyA Con uplifts the stories, talents, and resistance of Indigenous and other marginalized creators across comics, visual arts, literature, music, fashion, and multimedia.
Administered by RedLine, Arts in Society (AiS) is a grant program supporting cross-sector work through the arts across Colorado.
