The Imagine Bus Project

The Imagine Bus Project (TIBP) envisions a world where historical cycles of incarceration are broken when youth reach their fullest potential by leading creative, productive, and economically viable lives. By providing experiences in the visual arts for at-risk and adjudicated youth, we offer the vital tools the next generation will need to improve their lives and communities.

Mission and History: The Imagine Bus Project delivers cross-cultural learning experiences that focus on relationship building and art as tools for problem solving. We focus on exposing youth to creative opportunities and artists with the belief that art has the power to save lives and put adjudicated youth on a path towards a future in which they are healthy and empowered to lead creative and productive lives. Started in 1998 as single mobile art studio, TIBP now partners with juvenile detention centers, after school programs, and community based organizations to provide professional teaching artists who bring thoughtful ideas, age appropriate curriculum, and projects that empower youth to explore their creative potential, to work collaboratively, and to develop critical thinking skills, and that build confidence and self-esteem.

Current Programs: 1. Leadership Enterprise is a free training program for ages 13 - 18 that focuses on commercial art skills such as graphic design, digital photography, web design, and incorporates entrepreneurial principals and ideas; 2. Youth Studio is an ongoing visual arts program that serves incarcerated youth at San Francisco's Juvenile Hall, and Sonoma County's Sierra Youth Center and Los Guilicos Juvenile Justice Center using visual arts as a way to transform and explore the possibility for change.

Constituency Served: TIBP serves low-income communities mostly comprised of 70% African American, 15% Hispanic, 10% Asian, 5% Caucasian children and range in age from 5-18 years old. More than 50% qualify for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, and a majority of students in all grade levels score below the state, county and district average on the STAR 9 tests, and have a high rate of suspensions/expulsions. Over 81% of students served live below the poverty level and qualify for free or reduced lunch programs.