Stories from Community Arts: Carver Center Teen Class Begins

This week marks the start of the new teen clay classes with the Carver Center, a local nonprofit with a big impact.

Here at Clay Art Center, our Community Arts team partners with local organizations to make clay and art enrichment accessible in Port Chester, Westchester County, and beyond. For nearly 20 years, Community Arts has offered clay classes to afterschool programs, cancer patients and their families, youth and adults with disabilities, and countless others. We could not offer such a breadth of clay classes without building strong connections with other local organizations doing amazing community work, like the Carver Center.

Located on Westchester Ave in Port Chester, the Carver Center has been working to nourish, educate, and empower the local community for more than 80 years. The organization was founded during World War II by a small group of committed, Black community members who saw the necessity of advocating for the minority community in Port Chester. Along with a passionate group of volunteers, they organized to address the immediate needs of local children whose parents were working in defense factories in support of the war effort. Out of their determination and vision, the Carver Center was born, named for the renowned Black scientist George Washington Carver, who had past away earlier that year. Today, the Carver Center continues in its commitment to create opportunities for everyone in the community to learn, grow, and thrive.

The Carver Center’s Teen Center focuses on providing those opportunities specifically to teens, and empowering them with the life skills that will carry them forward. From financial literacy workshops to college counseling, movie nights to cultural field trips, more than 200 Port Chester teens find a place to get help with homework, make friends, and access programming they might not otherwise have been exposed to. Clay Art Center is excited to partner with the Carver Center and make clay part of the curriculum offered at the Teen Center.

After a blizzard postponed the first monthly class, Clay Art Center was able to welcome the group on March 31st for a wheel-throwing class, taught by Community Arts Program Manager, Brian Barry. The students were able to try their hand at the potter's wheel for the first time, focusing on basic wheel-throwing techniques like centering and pulling up the walls of the clay. The remaining classes for this school year will cover a wide variety of handbuilding techniques, and will take place at Carver Center. Clay Art Center is thankful for our partnerships with organizations like Carver Center that support our local community. 

Clay Art Center raises funds for programs like this one through our Scholarship and Creative Access Fund. You can support this work by donating today.