The Forum at Midnight

Now in our third year, The Midnight Forum has empowered over 100 youth in the arts and leadership. This year, in addition to the continuing incredible support of friends and volunteers, we’ve received grants from:

• D.C. Arts and Humanity and National Endowment for the Arts
• DC Rotary Club Foundation
• Diann H. Painter --matched by Exxon Mobil Retirement Matching Grant Program. These grants have allowed us to do some payback and to progress.
• Veteran volunteer trainers got some well-deserved honorariums.
• Education and arts program supplies were purchased to enhance the youth music, visual arts, and business plan projects.
• The website, www.Midnightforum.org, and the curriculum book were revised. Special thanks to Mitch Bechtel who updated the website, Check it out!

The Midnight Forum Year in Review:

Fall 2002 brought a core group of alums plus new recruits to sessions at the D.C. Department and Recreation of Stead Recreation Center as a DC Metro Youth Program. This semester’s emphasis on the visual arts really benefited from our new trainer Mike Hammond, a veteran traditional and Hip-Hop visual artist and historian. Mike got the group looking at the history of graffiti and then helped with hands-on experience that resulted in several murals on canvas.

The Disc Jockey (DJ) and Master of Ceremony (MC) Youth Artists worked on practicing their techniques and in recording their songs.

The Midnight Forum Year-In-Review:

Spring 2003: brought the Midnight Forum its first college intern Julius Schlueter from UMD-Collee Park. Julius acted as Program Manager at the DC Metro Youth Program.

• Another group of college students from Howard University and Brown University were doing a series of video documentaries about how Hip-Hop can be used as a positive and social change force in the community so they featured Midnight Forum youth.
• This spring, our trainers helped participants develop and implement a business plan to produce a public mural on the historicU Street. The youth created a large canvas mural What is the Midnight Forum? and recorded a song Massive Mission expressing their views on the unfinished historical business in Iraq.
• Midnight Forum participants showcased their music and visual arts talent at several public events at Friendship House, Eastern Market Day, and Mount Pleasant Day.

Summer 2003 DC Metro Youth Program returned alums and recruited more youth to the program.