Questions: Contact Wolfgang Bucher at
info@mosaicbrain.org or 816.810.8991

Chalk Walk in the Historic Northeast:
Celebrating Creativity While Building Community

What Is Chalk Walk?

Chalk Walk is a FREE and public sidewalk chalk drawing festival in April 2008 at the Concourse Park in the heart of the Historic Northeast Neighborhoods that celebrates the wealth of culture and diversity in the Kansas City Urban Core.  Proceeds raised by Chalk Walk benefit Mosaic Brain, a youth arts outreach organization that provides after school and out of school arts and culture programs to people living in the Historic Northeast Neighborhoods through its partnership with the Historic Northeast Cultural Arts Commission.

Why is there a Chalk Walk?

Chalk Walk Festival celebrates creativity while building community.  Chalk Walk spotlights the best of what the culturally diverse Historic Northeast Neighborhoods have to offer by bringing Kansas City citizens together at Concourse Park in April 2008.  The Chalk Walk Festival is a collaboration of neighbors, local business, schools, organizations and artisans that thrive in and around the Historic Northeast Neighborhoods.  Chalk Walk raises funds to benefit the young people of the neighborhoods.

There is a false perception among people in Kansas City that the urban core and the Historic Northeast is an unsafe place to visit, live and raise families.  Despite this reputation of violence in our neighborhood, many diverse people have made homes in this area and the fact remains, violence can happen anywhere in Kansas City.  Neighbors striving together in a community can eradicate factors that stimulate this violence, like gang culture, indifference, and racism.  Modeling healthy and positive choices can make the difference, especially for neighborhood kids at risk.  Chalk Walk brings an inter-generational community of people together in a common cause: to celebrate creativity while building community.

Who does Chalk Walk benefit?

Chalk Walk benefits Kansas City by reviving a much revered and accessible public art form and festival that in turn benefits youth most in need of arts and culture programs as an alternative to high risk behaviors.

Chalk Walk benefits the Historic Northeast Neighborhoods by creating a festival that focuses on the strengths of this diverse community rich in culture.  Much of the Northeast like Kansas City is segregated into ethnic areas with mixed groups bordering them.  The Chalk Walk festival brings these groups together in a unified celebration and in turn entice many people in and around the Greater Kansas City metro area into this growing neighborhood.

How does Chalk Walk Help the Historic Northeast?

Chalk Walk helps Mosaic Brain raise much-needed funds and community awareness to provide vital art and culture programs during after school, evening and weekend hours to at risk kids in the Historic Northeast Neighborhoods.  Mosaic Brain art programs work to keep kids off the streets and out of gangs by creating art programs that connect young people to pro-active academic, social and life experiences.

Socioeconomic factors make it difficult for young people in the Historic Northeast, to have healthy alternatives during after school and evening hours, especially pre-teens (ages 10 - 14).  These kids are thought of either too old to be supervised and too young to have structured job opportunities.  They are at an age caught in between immaturity and maturity.  They are also the most at risk for delinquent behavior and initiations into gang culture.

National statistics prove that a young person involved in after school and out of school arts programs is 80% less likely to become involved in delinquent behaviors.

Proceeds raised from the Chalk Walk festival are used to match other grant funds and support Mosaic Brain’s current after school and evening art programs and help establish a summer arts camp and entrepreneurial arts initiative for youth ages 6 – 15 in summer 2008.

What is Mosaic Brain?

One statistic inspired the creation of Mosaic Brain.  A young person involved in a consistent art program during after school or evening hours is 80% less likely to get involved in delinquent behavior that can lead to gangs, crime and violence.

Co-Founders, Wolfgang Bucher and Bryan Jordan are artists and educators who live in the Historic Northeast who wanted to create an opportunity that offers young people in their neighborhood positive alternatives to delinquent behaviors and gang culture.

Mosaic Brain is an arts outreach organization that uses the arts to create positive, creative, and safe alternatives to delinquent behavior during after school and out of school hours.  Mosaic Brain partners with existing organizations like KCMO Parks and Recreation, Kansas City Housing Authority, the Historic Northeast Chamber of Commerce.  Mosaic Brian also has begun an initiative to identify a site within each of the seven neighborhoods in the Historic Northeast to offer a weekly FREE art programming to area youth.

Thank you to all of our sponsors, we appreciate your support.