Purpose Prize

Marc Freedman Portrait

The Latest from CoGenerate

New Survey Reveals Benefits of Older-Younger Tutoring Teams

New Survey Reveals Benefits of Older-Younger Tutoring Teams

For the past year, Ampact, with support from CoGenerate’s Generations Serving Together program, placed cogenerational pairs of AmeriCorps members in elementary schools. The older and younger adults worked side by side to improve students’ reading and math skills. A...

The Billionaire Who Gave Away His Fortune Took a Big Chance on Us

The Billionaire Who Gave Away His Fortune Took a Big Chance on Us

We at CoGenerate (formerly Encore.org) are mourning the loss of Chuck Feeney this week. Without Chuck's vision and generosity we likely would not exist as an organization. Twenty-five years ago Atlantic Philanthropies took a chance on our start-up, playing a...

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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.