We're thrilled to announce that Groundswell raised over $55,000 in support of youth stipends for the Summer Leadership Institute! This impressive amount is an amazing 54% more than we raised last year, which is representative of the power of peer fundraising.

Thanks to generous supporters like you youth in the Summer Leadership Institute will create six large-scale public murals in NYC neighborhoods. Over the course of the summer, the youth will become advocates of social change, like Jessica Tepehua Martinez (right in photo), who said, "I was having a conversation with some acquaintances and they said something I didn't agree with. Normally, I let comments slide but because of what I learned working with Groundswell, I was surprised that I said something and my comments were driven with care."

Thank you to our Spring Committee members, Jeff Bergman, Johanna Ruth Epstein, Nicholas Obourn, Joyce Salazar, Morgan Spitalnick and Groundswell's incredible Board members Menshahat Ancewicz, Ricardo Cortés, Joseph Charczenko, Jay DeDapper, Christine Haney, Matthew Hopkins, Karen Jenson, Nazli Parvizi, Andrew Petronio, and our fearless leader Robyne Walker Murphy who spearheaded the effort to raise funds for participating youth stipends!

Our deepest gratitude to Groundswell's Director's Circle member Susan Pernick for her generous match of $5,000 and to partners  M&T Bank, Construction Risk Partners and Joseph Charczenko, Amalgamated Bank, PWB Management and Peter Bourbeau for their sponsorship of the Summer Leadership Institute.

As we look forward to celebrating our 500th mural as part of the Summer Leadership Institute, with a special presentation created in partnership with global design firm Gensler in the works, we invite you to the Summer mural tour on August 8th - more details to follow.