CCCI GRANTEES

2024

Mount Morris Park Community Improvement Association (MMPCIA)

Multidisciplinary

For more than four decades, Mount Morris Park Community Improvement Association (MMPCIA) has been at the forefront of stewardship and advocacy for the Mount Morris Park historic district and Marcus Garvey Park.MMPCIA supports neighborhood and cultural preservation, beautification, programs for our youth, our seniors, our creative community and scholarships for the next generation of leaders.

Read It and Leave It

Literacy

Since its inception in 2019, Read It & Leave It has become a beacon of educational empowerment and community care in Harlem. Founded by Miosha RJ, a dedicated native New Yorker with a deep-rooted commitment to her neighborhood, Harlem, this initiative sprang from her heartfelt concern for the trajectory of Harlem's youth.

New Heritage Theatre Group (NHTG)

Jazz

New Heritage Theatre Group (NHTG), based in Harlem since 1964, is a collection of artists, organizations, and community partners that educate, create, and present artistic works to Harlem residents and visitors. Since its inception, NHTG’s goal has been to develop productions that unite people of different backgrounds, race, and color and to advance global equality.

Maysles Documentary Center

Multidisciplinary; Film; Cultural

Maysles Documentary Center (MDC) is a Harlem-based nonprofit organization committed to community, education, and documentary film. We use filmmaking to amplify and expand under-represented artists and narratives, while empowering young filmmakers in creative self-expression, communicating ideas, and advocating needs.

Marcus Garvey Park Alliance (MGPA)

Multidisciplinary; Literacy

The Marcus Garvey Park Alliance (MGPA) is a not-for-profit advocacy organization established in the late 1990s, whose mission is to preserve and enhance the assets of the park by raising capital funds, by bringing a vast array of cultural events and programming to the park and by hosting planting and maintenance activities.

Vienna Carroll

Vocal Arts

Vienna Carroll is a singer, storyteller/playwright, actor, historian and herbalist. She is also the founder, manager and vocalist of the band, Vienna Carroll and the Folk featured in CCCI programming. Vienna Carroll’s rich soulful sound takes you back to her first music love, the Black church. Her passion and masterful storytelling light a fire in your soul. She tells forgotten stories of Black heroes and serves up those old songs through a modern lens to make Afro Future Roots Music.

Harlem Needle Arts

Visual Arts; Textile

Harlem Needle Arts is an arts and cultural organization at the forefront of revolutionizing, preserving, and expanding the narrative of fiber, textile, design, and needle arts in the African Diaspora through exhibitions, education, technical support, economic development, and other tools.

Jazzmobile

Multidisciplinary; Jazz

Jazzmobile presents, preserves, promotes and propagates America's classical music, Jazz. Founded in 1964 by National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master, pianist, Dr. Billy Taylor and philanthropist and arts administrator, Ms. Daphne Anstein, Jazzmobile is the first U.S. not-for-profit arts and cultural organization created just for Jazz. Since the beginning, they have been bringing high quality Jazz performances and education programs to area residents, tourists and other visitors, reaching over 4,000,000 people living or visiting New York City. Our national programs brought us to other cities in the US; and the 'Super Jazz Band' had us touring cities in Europe and Japan.

Good Vibes in the Park

Multidisciplinary; Wellness

Good Vibes in the Park is a social gathering birthed in Harlem to create safe spaces, center mental health & joy, as an affront to injustice. Seasoning the vibes with mental health & wellness practitioners, performances and interactive activations, GVIP sets a soothing and entertaining motif that is both inviting, welcoming, exciting and assuring all at the same time. It is truly a community staple with full support and attendance Harlem residents (and New Yorkers) and creates a platform for local vendors, creatives, various age groups from young-old and a diverse array of attendants.

nia love: UNDERcurrents

Visual Arts; Dance

nia love (B.A. in Theater Directing, Howard University; M.F.A. in Dance, Florida State University) was a teenage apprentice with Ballet Nacional de Cuba, a Fulbright Fellow in Ghana & Mali, an Urban Bush Women Choreographic Initiative Fellow, and an Embodying Anti-Racism Fellow at Wesleyan University.

Classical Theatre of Harlem (CTH)

Theatre; Wellness

Classical Theatre of Harlem (CTH) is a professional theatre company dedicated to returning the classics to the stages of Harlem; to create employment and educational outreach opportunities in the theatre arts; to create and nurture a new, young, and culturally diverse audience for the classics; and to heighten the awareness of theatre and of great art in Harlem.

The National Jazz Museum in Harlem (NJMH)

Jazz; Wellness

National Jazz Museum in Harlem (NJMH) preserves, promotes and presents jazz by inspiring knowledge, appreciation and celebration of jazz locally, nationally and internationally. Since 1996, the Museum has promoted the “jazz as it developed and evolves in Harlem” brand and experience to New York City residents as well as our national and international visitors and online audiences.

Generation Verb

Vocal Arts; Poetry

Generation Verb is a spoken word scholastic program that uses poetic literature and performance to foster expression, communication, and social-emotional learning –building language skills, collaboration, and confidence in a post-pandemic world. They use poetry as a window through which we examine contemporary social issues and culture to show our audience how to 'write the world' in an effort to 'right the world.'

Claim Our Space Now

Cultural

Claim Our Space Now ritualizes consistent and urgent action to dismantle systems of white supremacy and save all Black lives. They build and mobilize power by making multimedia education, grassroots organizing, and consistent community care accessible to all.

Uptown Grand Central

Wellness

Uptown Grand Central is a 501c3 nonprofit organization dedicated to transforming East 125th Street into a thriving corridor by delivering programs that put advocacy into action through collaborations with businesses, residents and neighborhood organizations across East Harlem.

NYC Kidsfest

Multidisciplinary; Arts

NYC Kidsfest centers kindness, joy, belonging and inclusion. Drawing inspiration from the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child, NYC Kidsfest recognizes the right of the child to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts.

Fable Jones Studios

Wellness; Arts; Dance

Michael Watson, also known as Fable Jones, is a multidisciplinary artist from Harlem with over two decades of experience in the arts and curation and Fable Jones Studios as a a safe haven for artists of all practices. Their mission is to provide artists with a platform to share their work and increase our ability to provide them with the education, tools, and resources that they need to flourish in their careers.

Nafisa Sharriff

Wellness; Dance

Reverend Nafisa Sharriff is an ordained Interfaith Minister, Meditation Master and a consummate instructor and choreographer of traditional West African folklore from the Old Malian Empire. Integrating the unique blend of her spiritual and cultural experiences, Reverend Nafisa Sharriff founded Entering the Holy of Holies, An Institute of Learning and Healing, Inc. to teach people how to meditate, dance and recreate their lives in Love.

Patricia Blount

Cultural; Arts

A Social Work Clinician by trade and an Artist at heart, Patricia Blount has been hand crafting fine jewelry for over 30 years in schools or community centers, from toddlers to seniors, in the US and abroad including Ghana, and South Africa.

Fearless Young Artists

Wellness; Dance

A performing arts company whose mission is to educate, elevate, and escape into the unknown possibilities the arts have to offer as a means to deepen one self-awareness when in interpersonal, creative spaces. FYA is where artists and their families are offered continuing education from professional artists who are highly trained & respected educators and veteran industry performers.

Three and a Half Acres Yoga (THAY)

Wellness

Three and a Half Acres Yoga broadens access to yoga, breathing, and mindfulness techniques, focusing on communities that have experienced trauma.

360 Entertainment Corp.

Music; Vocal Arts

360 Entertainment International, LLC (360EI) aims to “Entertain, Educate and Empower”. 360EI takes a comprehensive approach to sustain social, cultural and economic development through presenting, producing, promoting, selling and distributing quality music, film, video, performances and streamed events that reflect the beauty, history and integrity of multi-cultural communities, particularly of Black and Latinx culture.