Blanche Calloway's Café of the Arts Community Centers
In Memoriam: Blanche Calloway (1902 – 1978)
Café of the Arts is an Education-through-the-Arts property of S.E.E.D. Development Group (SDG), Inc. The program was named to honor jazz musician, political activist, entrepreneur, and community developer - the late Blanche Calloway. She was the older sister of world renown, singer, dancer, and star of stage and screen - Cab Calloway.
Blanche Calloway was the aunt of SEED Development Group CEO and founder, Dr. Mike Monroe. Over the years, her perceptive counsel and teachings became a major inspirational force in Dr. Monroe's life. Within him, Blanche Calloway's dynamism survives long after her death, and for him - in spirit - Blanche Calloway significantly influenced the creation and development of SDG, especially SDG's Café of the Arts.
Café of the Arts -- A Blanche Calloway Legacy --Mission:
The mission of Blanche Calloway’s Café of the Arts Community Centers is to provide essential community services, a venue for local artists, and wholesome entertainment within a distinctive performing and visual arts environment.
Enhanced through a unique design, the Café of the Arts Community Centers environment has been specially created to advance understanding of the world of the arts, to promote learning through arts-based curricula of core subjects, such as mathematics, and to encourage utilizing an understanding of the arts as a tool for the development of cognitive skills.
Consequently, an individual Café will not only provide special services for aspiring and professional artists but for the community at large. Persons from all walks of life will be placed in an atmosphere of congeniality, where they can leisurely and comfortably explore the consciousness-enhancing world of the arts. Thus, the Café of the Arts will provide sustenance - not only for the body - but for the mind and soul as well.
Vision: Sustenance for the Mind, Body, and Soul:
Designed to function alone, in most instances, a Café will work in concert with local arts oriented, non-profit agencies that promote community development - with a special but not exclusive concentration on groups that serve or desire to serve indigent and other disadvantaged populations.
Consequently, Blanche Calloway’s Café of the Arts establishments are independent, arts-based community service organizations, which are intended to be complementary to existing neighborhood corporations. Concerning the latter, Cafés are equipped to provide agencies located within their host cities with a unique opportunity to combine resources for the greater good.
How Do We Bring to Fruition the Café’s Mission and Vision?
Primarily, each Café provides a bridge connecting four group types:
- activist development organizations, public and private;
- arts-based agencies;
- performance-oriented organizations, e.g., theaters, and
- the community at large.
As such, a Café is the "super glue" that binds the first three entities into a powerful single force, a force that uses the best of the arts to entertain, educate, raise consciousness, and, in some areas, to provide an alternative to an atmosphere of hopelessness.
Concerning the last point, Café visionaries drew on a basic premise during the planning stage. They recognized the need to develop surroundings where - as people strive to realize their highest potential - the ambiance, itself, is a motivating factor. Consequently, each Café is designed to provide such an environment.
Presently, the originator and associates of Café of the Arts intend to commence joint venture negotiations with nonprofit, 501(c)(3), performing arts organizations, located in selected communities. This partnership will allow local companies to widen and deepen their performance and non-performance programs base.
As stated, the Café will form the "super-glue" binding the chosen entity to other arts oriented entities in this venue.
Executives of these organizations will be presented with an outline of particular activities that can be organized by the Café and chosen entity and presented as a jointly sponsored physical building and program entitled:
Blanche Calloway’s Café of the Arts Community Center –
(Sponsor Name, City, State).
Blanche Calloway’s Café of the Arts Community Centers
With a 100% Tax Deductible Donation!!!