Young Storytellers

Young Storytellers is launching Script to Stage: Afterschool Edition to bring storytelling, mentorship, and live performance to under-resourced communities in East and South LA. Through a 10-week program, students will create original scripts and see them performed by professional actors. By combining arts education, youth development, and joyful collective experiences, we help the next generation learn, grow, and lead with their voices.

We are healthcare clowns who use the art of comedy, empathy, and awareness to connect with patients of all ages, allowing them an opportunity to escape/shift their current emotional state through laughter and integrative play. Our goal is to use our extensive training and experience to lay the groundwork for an in-house clowning program at a LA hospital tailored specifically to their needs. We hope to create a unique healing environment where laughter and medicine are woven together within the fabric of hospital culture.

This grant will support Young Storytellers' efforts in 2024-2025 to expand our unique literary and performing arts programming. By leveraging our extensive history and accomplishments, we aim to provide storytelling and scriptwriting programs to more than 2,600 students annually, empowering them to explore their identities and impact their communities. This funding will enable us to enhance our in-school, volunteer-led programs and provide arts education to underserved youth in Los Angeles County.

At Young Storytellers, we raise voices, one story at a time. We want to take what we’ve learned over the past 25 years and offer our curriculum and educational toolkits to other communities across Los Angeles. We plan to expand into communities that have the highest need for our programming and provide toolkits, training resources, and more as we form partnerships to raise the voices of storytellers across the city.