Purpose Prize

Marc Freedman Portrait

The Latest from CoGenerate

Want to Recruit Younger People? Look Within

Want to Recruit Younger People? Look Within

For the past five years, I’ve been working as an advocate for the causes I believe in and for more intergenerational collaboration. Young people like me want more opportunities to work across generations for change, but we also want to be treated as equals.  To...

What Young Leaders Want — And Don’t Want — From Older Allies

What Young Leaders Want — And Don’t Want — From Older Allies

We know from our nationally representative study with NORC at the University of Chicago in 2022 that 76% of Gen Z and 70% of Millennial respondents wish they had more opportunities to work across generations for change.  In a new report, What Young Leaders Want — And...

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Jessica Holt

The Bauen Camp, Inc.
Purpose Prize Fellow 2007

Transforming exceptional young artists into community leaders.

Jessica Holt, a professional artist, founded the Bauen Camp in 1999 on 70 acres in the foothills of Wyoming’s Big Horn Mountains. The Bauen Camp – “Bau” means to build or nurture in German – aims to empower disenfranchised youth to become civic change agents in their communities, teaching them how the arts can be used to build social creativity and responsibility. Working with a network of more than 80 local youth organizations and schools in five focal areas – Chicago, Denver, Minneapolis/St. Paul, New York City, and the State of Wyoming – Holt selects 60 disadvantaged youth to attend the camp each year, a dozen or so young artists who pay their own way, artist-counselors and directors. The three-week experience is focused on advancing each student’s artistic leadership and life skills, culminating in a public collaborative project modeling new ways to consider social problems. Returning home, Bauen campers are linked with mentors and alumni in a network that supports their further development as community leaders. Since its founding, the camp has served more than 300 youth.