Riverzedge- The Continuing Commitment of RWU to a Striving Organization Serving Youth

Riverzedge, Serving the Youth of Rhode Island Since 2002

The Riverzedge Arts mission is pretty straight forward, “Riverzedge Arts mission is to improve lives and places through art, design and creative problem solving. We do this through creative youth development, leadership development and transforming education” said Kelly Harlow, co-interim executive director of Riverzedge Arts Simply put, Riverzedge is a local nonprofit that works to help youth with underprivileged lives have more lasting experiences. This in the long run, gives them a better chance at success. Riverzedge provides after school programs for youth to come and practice expression through art. Some of their programs include studies that focus on print works, design works, media works, public art lab, and green design lab. These programs allow students to express themselves through real artwork that is made for the community or local partners. These programs also provide small stipends not only to artists who work on commissioned pieces, but others who utilize the studios to work on other community partners. Their goal is to provide opportunities for youth to see what real world jobs in the arts will look like. This is a very similar mission to what the CPC works to do with professors and students here at RWU. For more information, or to see images of their impressive projects, visit the Riverzedge website at http://riverzedgearts.org/about-us/!

Riverzedge in the Classroom

One of the major components of Roger Williams University's teaching style, is to connect the topics learned in the classroom to real world experiences. In class, marketing students practice gathering and interpreting data from large surveys to get a better understanding on specific issues. According to Riverzedge’s Kelly Harlow, “RWU students have been the key in developing survey questions and analyzing the results after youth have taken the survey. They’ve developed graphics for us to help visualize our results.” By matching the marketing students with the Riverzedge Arts, Professor Micken - whose class is undertaking this project - has given her students the opportunity to work with real statistics that they can analyse, to help create real solutions. Working with Riverzedge helps Roger Williams University students gain experience, and it helps Riverzedge gain information at not cost to help accomplish more for the youth of Rhode Island.

“THANK YOU to all the RWU students we’ve worked with and especially Kathy Micken and the time she’s devoted to Riverzedge Arts” - Kelly Harlow

Learn more about the RWU and Riverzedge partnership from previous articles: Here and Here

Author: Averi Preston