Support from you

Your donations will go to directly to providing materials, supplies, education, and free marketplaces for Denver’s homeless. Denver Homeless Art Project (DHAP) is 100% supported by you. It’s you, and people like you that have always made this possible. Thank you.

Project Abstract

DHAP is a project to provide the poorest of Denver’s poor with a public creative market, and the supplies to enter and compete in that market. Annually on the first Friday of November, DHAP produces the Denver Homeless Art Exhibit (DHAE) on the Santa Fe ArtWalk.

The Exhibit has since become an icon of self-made success, an emblem of the true potential inside everyone.

Statement of Need

Approximately 11,000 men, women, and children in Metro Denver are homeless. Nearly half belong to families with children. Some of the most at risk individuals are the 3,700 homeless people who will submit art to a public auction, given the chance.

Almost everyone who knows someone who lost a job last year. This year, hunger, poverty, and joblessness are affecting even more Denver families. These people are our neighbors. There is a need for low cost basic marketplace in which they can sell the products built of their own personal industry, creativity, and productivity.

There is a need for the poor to live in a city with more opportunities to productively and peacefully advance.

Description

DHAP is a project to create marketplaces for homeless artists and provide them with the supplies needed to sell their art to the public. The Exhibit attracts more than 8,500 people in a single night.

Homeless Artists

100% of each art sale goes directly to the homeless artist who painted it. Though canvases, supplies, and transportation are completely subsidized for the artist, each is allowed to use any media and/or deliver on their worn to exhibit, as per public notice (below). No artist is ever censored.

Partners in the industries of hardware and construction are in need. Material cost is the single largest expense in this project. Sponsors companies who make or can supply art supplies or raw lumber can provide a crucial element to the long-term success of this project.

Goals and Objectives

The goal of Denver Homeless Art Project is to provide a practical environment in which a poor person with peaceful drive may profit from his/her own creativity. This will reduce poverty by allowing the Denver’s poor to create opportunities for themselves through their own industry.

For those of us who feel the full brunt of economic pressures, DHAP provides a healthy pathway to development, financial security, and education for the poor. Main objectives include the following:

• Provide a measurable increase in self-created wealth by Denver’s homeless population, as measured in terms of artists before DHAE as compared to after. The objective is to create at least twice as much wealth as is donated (e.g., last year our average $5.65 canvas sold for $18.00, which meets this objective because $18.00 is greater than $5.65 x 2).
• Provide free creative workshops with the poor aimed at economic development and personal wealth creation. The objective is to hold at least two workshops per opt-in artist (some artists naturally choose not to attend) per Homeless Art Exhibit.
• Provide a free canvas and free art supply kit to 200 homeless artists, accounting for any reasonable immobilities, inabilities, and inaccessibilities of the artist when delivering the canvases and picking up the artwork. The objective is to provide a universally-accessible open forum with public submissions of art for public exhibit.

How you can help

Our program needs people like you to keep us strong, free, and compassionate long into the future. Today, you can help the homeless for just one dollar:

Back the Denver Homeless Art Project now or simply learn more.

This project is 100% transparent. Read the complete Denver Homeless Art Project Official 2011 Proposal or learn about volunteering.

MINIMUM PLEDGE: $1

Pledge $20 or more

• Give a Gift Canvas to a homeless artist, and see it on the ArtWalk. (In fact, each artist receives one large wooden canvas, one full art supply kit including paints, paintbrushes, and workbooks, and opportunities to attend free creative educational workshops from Denver Public Art University. 99% of canvases are displayed at next DHAE on Santa Fe ArtWalk with sign that reads “donated by…..”, followed by YOUR NAME.)

Pledge $60 or more

• Give 4 Gift Canvases to 4 homeless artists, and see them on the ArtWalk.

Pledge $90 or more

• Give 8 Gift Canvases to 8 homeless artists, and see them on the ArtWalk.

Pledge $240 or more

• Give 24 Gift Canvases to 24 homeless artists, and see them on the ArtWalk.

Learn More

For more information you can read the Official Denver Homeless Art Project Proposal.

Denver Art Society is a 501(c) nonprofit registered in Colorado since Aug 14, 2009.

Learn more about the nonprofit Denver Art Society or contact us.