As applications are rolling in for this year’s Knight Arts Challenge Philadelphia (due date: Oct. 15), it’s a great time to check in with winners from the first year of the Challenge and take note of the kind of lasting impact their winning ideas are having on the community. One success story is that of Fresh Artists, a small (as in three full-time employees!) nonprofit that won $75,000 in the spring of 2011 to build a professional digital print studio and develop an internship program for underserved youth. Empowering young lives through art and philanthropy, Fresh Artists has a unique three-pronged business model:

• Extraordinary art made by K-12 children in severely under-funded public schools is identified; the children are asked to donate a high-resolution digital image of their art to Fresh Artists, introducing the concept and action of individual philanthropy in vulnerable young people.
• In turn, Fresh Artists accepts corporate donations and gives, as thank-you gifts, large-scale digital reproductions of children’s artworks from its collection to install in their boardrooms and public spaces.
• These donations directly fund the delivery of art supplies and innovative art programs in public schools where art teachers may have only a few cents per student for an entire year’s art supplies.

Thanks to the Knight Arts Challenge, Fresh Artists was able to move out of Founder/President Barbara Chandler Allen’s living room and into a bright, inspiring studio full of professional large-format digital printing equipment. In addition, the Knight funding has helped Fresh Artists launch their dream Teen Internship program where at-risk youth are introduced to large-format printing, develop their portfolios and learn valuable job skills from Fresh Artists mentors.

“Knight was the seed that allowed us to flourish,” Chandler Allen says. She points out that Knight’s support encouraged other benefactors — from individuals like the electrician who volunteered 13 weekends to large corporations like HP and Epson — to donate everything from professional scanners and $35,000 printers to electrical wiring and lighting. “By having Knight identify us as innovators, all of these good things have come from that,” says Barbara. “It was having Knight say, ‘We’re in’ that sparked a cascade of involvement.”

Knight is in. Are you? Apply today.

Applications for year three of the Knight Arts Challenge Philadelphia are now being accepted through Oct. 15. Give us your best idea and make this your year!