Did you know Broad Room's Free Art Supply Closet is chronically underfunded? While the number of people we serve has increased exponentially to 2,200 last year from about 100 people in 2020, our funding has not kept up. In 2020, we had the equivalent of $98 per person who came into the Closet and this year it's more like $13 per person. This is the reason why we can't open the Closet on additional days, do more community events, or keep the Closet well-organized.
Did you know we don't receive any grant funding for the Free Art Supply Closet? This is because grant funds often come with restrictions on who we can serve with our programs and we are not willing to turn anyone away from the Free Art Supply Closet.
We rely heavily on financial support from our community for this community-driven program.
Broad Room Creative Collective (Broad Room) was founded in 2018 with the mission to provide space and resources for historically underrepresented artists in Sacramento. During the pandemic, we asked our community of primarily working class artists what they needed to survive and continue their creative practice. We launched the Free Art Supply Closet in October 2020 to provide artists with the supplies they needed to continue their work. Since 2021, this program has been sustained through art supply and financial donations from the community.
We are now not only serving dozens of people every week who come into the Free Art Supply Closet, but we are also providing free art supplies at regular community distributions to our neighbors experiencing houselessness. We look forward to expanding our reach and deepening our impact in the community -- which we can only achieve through your generous support!
Broad Room Creative Collective is an arts nonprofit that believes art is a human right and everyone deserves access to the tools, resources, and space they need to create. Our work is centered around art supply redistribution, community building, training and advocacy, and environmental sustainability.
1. Meeting the material needs of our employee by providing healthcare coverage.
2. Meeting the material needs of our volunteers by providing excellent storage and display in the Free Art Supply Closet as well as food, drinks, and seating/accessibility supplies to make their time in the warehouse as comfortable as possible.
3. Emergency funds to cover the cost of maintaining the warehouse including roof maintenance, lighting replacement, and gate repairs.
It is our mission to provide the tools, resources, and space to everyone to enjoy creative practice. To succeed in this mission, we continue to center diversity, inclusivity, equitability, and accessibility in our organization as well as the community we serve. We achieve this by reaching out to those in our community who are most in need through our distributions to those experiencing housing insecurity, maintaining the Free Art Supply Closet in our warehouse, prioritizing offering studio space to working class artists, and sharing our knowledge of art supply mutual aid throughout the world.
Organization name
Broad Room Creative Collective Sacramento
2018
Mission Category
Arts, Culture & Humanities
Operating Budget
$100,001-$250,000
Organization Need
Funding: Program, Funding: Unrestricted
Demographics Served
Individuals with disabilities, Low-income individuals/families, LGBTQIA+
Local Counties Served
Sacramento
Equity Statement
Equity Statement
Address
1409 Del Paso BlvdSacramento, CA, US