Destiny Arts Center

Destiny Arts Center seeks to inspire and ignite social change through movement arts by providing free and low-cost dance, theater, martial arts, violence prevention, and leadership classes to youth aged three to 18 in Oakland. Destiny Art Center’s professional teaching artists work with more than 3,000 primarily low-income youth and youth of color, both at the organization’s home campus, and at 24 schools and community centers throughout the East Bay. Destiny Arts Center’s two youth performing companies collaborate to produce one original piece of musical theater per year, and perform for more than 20,000 audience members annually.

Destiny Arts Center exists to eliminate isolation, violence, and prejudice in the lives of young people aged three to eighteen, through free and low-cost dance, theater, martial arts, violence prevention, and youth leadership classes. Taught by professional instructors after school, these classes serve low-income youth and youth of color, both at the Center’s main Oakland site and at twenty-four schools and community centers throughout the area. Each year, the program reaches more than 2,000 youth and 20,000 audience members in North Oakland’s neighborhoods. After purchasing a new facility in 2013, Destiny Arts Center seeks to maintain youth programming at current levels, build out internal administrative capacity, and develop a long-term strategy for growth. Renewed support will help the organization redefine its role in North Oakland following these changes, and re-position its educational programming to best fit that new role.