COVID-19 Community Response Fund

The Lewis Prize for Music is thrilled to announce the recipients of its COVID-19 Community Response Fund. A total of $1.25 million will be awarded to 32 Creative Youth Development (CYD) organizations across the U.S. that have adapted and responded to the pressing needs of the young people they serve amid the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Lewis Prize for Music invests in youth music organizations and their leaders to facilitate positive change through access to music education. Each of the COVID-19 Community Response Fund recipients embody this goal; they do extraordinary work providing young people with opportunities to learn, perform and create music while also serving their immediate and unique needs around food, transportation, mental health, and academics. 

From Flint, Michigan to Montgomery, Alabama, to Oakland, California, the recipients cultivate leadership opportunities and safe spaces for the young people they support. Many of the recipients have budgets of less than $100,000 per year, and two-thirds are led by people of color. Through their community-driven and youth-focused approach, they have become safe havens for the young people they serve during COVID-19.

“Access to music enriches the social fabric of our lives,” said Daniel Lewis, Founder and Chairman of the Lewis Prize for Music. “The organizations and leaders we have chosen to support in these times play a critical role in the lives and communities of the young people they support. In the face of unprecedented challenges of COVID-19 and racial injustice across the country, Creative Youth Development organizations are devoting all of their resources to uplift both the creative and material well-being of young people and their families. We are thrilled to support these organizations and be an advocate for the entire Creative Youth Development field.”

Creative Youth Development is a recent term for a longstanding practice that integrates creative skill-building, inquiry, and expression with positive youth development principles, including holistic wellbeing. It is a national movement dedicated to strengthening young people and their communities through local expressions of culture and music.

“The Lewis Prize for Music is committed to supporting young people and the adults in their lives who give them love, safety, and a musical voice,” said Dalouge Smith, CEO of The Lewis Prize for Music. “These 32 grantees work to break down barriers of inequality every day. They also do more than offer programs and services to young people, they include them in decision-making. We are honored to mirror this by including ten young adults under the age of 26 in the grant-making process.”

The grants announced today range from $25,000 to $50,000 to each of the following 32 Creative Youth Development organizations:

• 317 Main Community Music Center (Yarmouth, ME)

• A Place Called Home (Los Angeles, CA) 

• Beyond the Bars (Philadelphia, PA)

• Beyond the Natural (Baltimore, MD)

• Cambridge Community Center (Cambridge, MA)

• Center of Life (Pittsburgh, PA)

• Crescendo Detroit (Detroit, MI)

• Enriching Lives Through Music (San Rafael, CA)

• FAME - Foundation for the Advancement of Music & Education (Bowie, MD)

• Hyde Square Task Force (Jamaica Plain, MA)

• Memphis Music Initiative (Memphis, TN)

• MEOW Cares, Inc. (Montgomery, AL)

• Music Beyond Measure (Montclair, NJ)

• Neutral Zone (Ann Arbor, MI)

• New City Kids (Jersey City, NJ)

• Pico Youth & Family Center (Santa Monica, CA)

• Play on Philly (Philadelphia, PA)

• ROCA Music Program (Brownsville, TX)

• RYSE Youth Center (Richmond, CA)

• Saint Louis Story Stitchers Artists Collective (St. Louis, MO)

• Stax Music Academy (Memphis, TN)

• Sylvester Broome Empowerment Village (Flint, MI)

• The Choir School of Delaware (Wilmington, DE)

• The Heartbeat Music Project (Crownpoint, NM)

• The HUBB (Newark, NJ)

• The Jessye Norman School of the Arts, Inc. (Augusta, GA)

• The TETRA (Detroit, MI)

• White Hall Arts Academy (Los Angeles, CA)

• Youth Empowerment Project (New Orleans, LA)

• Youth on Record (Denver, CO)

• YR Media (Oakland, CA)

• ZUMIX (East Boston, MA)

The Lewis Prize for Music team is dedicated to providing transparency about our work. Learn about our selection process.