Support and opportunities for young artists are valuable community assets. In the Westside neighborhood of San Antonio, Texas, SAY Sí has been providing a broad array of arts programming to youth for over 25 years.
Founded by a neighborhood association, it is the city’s only tuition-free, year-round arts education offering. A strong focus on peer-to-peer mentoring helps students develop critical leadership skills. Of vital importance in an area with a 40% poverty rate, 100% of SAY Sí’s students — the majority of whom are Latino and first-generation college students — graduate from high school and are accepted to college.
With a $3.6 million bridge loan from BlueHub, SAY Sí is renovating a newly acquired space to offer digital music production, journalism and culinary arts education — expanding on its goal to create a premier, inclusive, dynamic and nurturing educational environment for San Antonio’s youth.
