CASE STATEMENT

On the occasion of our 42nd anniversary, we are raising $15.4 million through a unique public-private partnership to restore the our home, the Winters Building.   The Winters Building Restoration project reflects the our unwavering commitment to improving public education, supporting the urban renewal and economic revitalization of the Iron Triangle neighborhood through the preservation of a key asset in the city of Richmond, and ensuring the Bay Area region’s rich cultural history. 

This project will have a tremendous long-term economic and cultural impact on our students and their families, the historic downtown redevelopment area of the city of Richmond, as well as the larger community of Contra Costa County and the East Bay.  Those impacts include:

• The restored facility will serve as leverage for $200 million of redevelopment projects in the neighborhood, while the performance and instructional spaces will be the best-equipped and most accessible spaces available to the financially challenged greater Richmond community

• The restored and renovated facility will serve as a beacon of organizational longevity and continuity, showcasing East Bay Center’s program as a national model for other inner city, urban youth/arts nonprofit organizations.

Community Impact

Once this historic project is completed, we will:

• Instruct 125,000 children and youth in long-term professional hands-on training in music, dance, theater, and media arts

• Partner with our local public school district to bring a minimum of 100,000 school children to the East Bay Center for field trips, workshops, and performance events

• Serve and entertain 500,000 local and regional audience members in the performance spaces

• Serve and engage the entire Iron Triangle Neighborhood population of 15,000-20,000 community members each year in public events and self-determined programming, by, for, and about the neighborhood’s legacy

• Employ and involve thousands of Bay Area artists as instructors, performers, creators, and as public educational resources

• Support thousands of local public school teachers with U.S. DOE (Department of Education) supported professional development workshops and curriculum – aimed at incorporating culturally diverse performing arts, aligned with California VAPA standards (Visual and Performing Arts), into their classrooms, and

• Realize the graduation of 750 Artist Diploma Leadership Level Students

Throughout it all, we will keep our promise that was made in this community forty years ago: All who care, come. All who wish to grow, reach within.

For more information about the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts Capital Project, please call or write:

Charlene E. Smith
Director of Development
(510) 323-2489
charlene.smith@eastbaycenter.org