Time flies when you’re chasing a dream.
Randi Alper Pupkin should know. It’s been a quartetr-century since the Pikesville resident started Art With A Heart, the Baltimore nonprofit that brings art education and so much more to people all over Charm City.
On Mar. 29, AWAH will celebrate its 25th anniversary, and Pupkin will step down from her role as the organization’s executive director on June 30.
As she reflects on her tenure with AWAH, Pupkin says she’s still astounded by her passion project’s growth and staying power.
“Baltimore is a city with about 5,000 nonprofits, so to make it to 25 years is extraordinary,” she says. “And believe me, in a million years, I never thought I’d be talking about an organization I founded that’s turning 25 and is providing so much creativity in our community. It never was something I envisioned.”
Back when Pupkin first set out to bring art into the lives of others, she was a practicing attorney and mother of two young children. After work, she moonlighted as an art teacher at four different sites.
“I incorporated it in March of 2000,” she says. “For about a year, I pounded the pavement and learned about nonprofits. We started in two group homes for emotionally troubled adolescent boys, an Alzheimer’s facility and the House of Ruth.”
A quarter of a century later?
“Last year, we conducted nearly 16,000 classes,” says Pupkin. “We are the art teacher in 17 schools, and we have 35 partners that run programs that happen after school, evenings, weekends and [during the] summer.”
Currently, AWAH has 20 in-house staff and approximately 85 teachers and teaching assistants. The nonprofit’s 10-year-old Art of Leadership program, which brings together a diverse cohort of 10th and 11th grade students from area high schools, has also developed considerably.
“We have about 170 alumni and 12 of them sit on an alumni council, and we have two students from the first cohort who are now on AWAH’s advisory board,” Pupkin says. “One is a teacher at KIPP [public charter schools], and one works for [Gov.] Wes Moore. Wes Moore was a speaker for the first cohort and he inspired the kid to work for him.”
AWAH has installed more than 300 public art works throughout the Baltimore area. These include painted murals, mosaics, and mixed-media pieces that can be seen at sites such as Pikesville’s Beth El Congregation, the Abell Foundation, the University of Maryland Medical Center Midtown Campus, and Cross Street Market.
For the past 15 years, AWAH has run HeARTworks, a work development program in which adolescents and young adults create marketable art sold at AWAH’s social enterprise and retail store, HeARTwares.
Up until recently, HeARTworks was housed onsite at AWAH’s headquarters at 3000 Falls Road in Baltimore. But as of Nov. 30, the store has relocated to 36th Street in the city’s Hampden neighborhood. Formerly the site of another non-profit, Pupkin says HeArtwares will give the space “new life.”
Meanwhile, Pupkin will embark on a new life of sorts. She admits leaving her dream job won’t be easy, but she believes “the time is right. A younger person should take over. I don’t feel like I’m old and I still have plenty of energy, but I just feel like sometimes I sit in a room and I’m not speaking the same language anymore.”
Pupkin plans to consult at AWAH for a year after she leaves. She isn’t certain about what else is in store for her, but the Chizuk Amuno congregant plans to get more involved in Jewish communal life.
“This last year of my Jewish life has grown [in me], an increased passion for Jewish representation and fighting antisemitism,” Pupkin says. “I don’t know if there’s a lane somewhere in that for me.”
She says she’s pleased that her deputy director, Megan Gatto, a nine-year veteran of AWAH, will step into her role.
“I’m very fortunate to have someone who is passionate about the work and the mission and the business side of it and has great leadership skills,” Pupkin says. “Megan is enthusiastic and young and spirited and funny and just everything the organization needs.”
In addition to her appreciation for Gatto, Pupkin is grateful for so many others that have helped build AWAH.
“None of it happened just because of me. It’s always been about the people who were around me and who believed in the work — the foot soldiers and the team and the collaboration and the partners,” she says. “None of it would have happened without an incredible community, both in-house, in the community partnerships. … I just had an idea. People had to believe in it.”
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