reDiscover was founded in 2002 and incorporated in 2004 to improve children’s art education by using recycled materials. Since 2008, reDiscover has operated the reDiscover Center in Venice, a 3,000 sf public youth makerspace. Makerspaces are shared facilities stocked with tools and materials where participants can learn, make, and share their projects and expertise. We provide makerspace services and hands-on STEAM classes, camps, field trips, exhibits, festival activities, and distance learning resources. These programs serve K-8 students through school programs, youth ages 5-15 through workshops and programs at our makerspace, and youth and adults in community programs such as Cardboard City and free art activities at farmers markets.

While arts education had been a part of the organization from the start, in 2010, reDiscover began running a few week-long summer camps that emphasized using more intensive tools in creative reuse. With clamps, drills, handsaws, jigsaws, and a chopsaw, young tinkerers could utilize reclaimed wood in addition to the existing materials to make larger creations. This summer camp program grew threefold in 2015, and since then has spread to 6 different locations, and has given birth to a variety of programs that meet children where they are.

Over the past 10 years, our earned income programs have blossomed, providing direct service to Westside youth through camps and classes while generating income to bring reDiscover’s programs into more disadvantaged communities and provide scholarship support. While we are proud of our growth and ability to stay solvent in an unpredictable financial landscape, since 2020 we have made a major shift toward re-focusing on under resourced communities, including an increased emphasis on free community programs and partnerships with organizations serving homeless, justice-involved, and low income youth. At the same time, one of reDiscover’s top priorities during 2020 was to undertake a self-assessment of internal and external barriers to inclusivity and accessibility. From this year-long process came the creation of guidelines and implementation of the organization’s first ever Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Action Plan.

Throughout 2021 and 2022, staff and board members continued the process of formally aligning these priorities with our daily operations, community outreach, hiring policies, fundraising strategies, and long term strategic plans. With COVID relief funding, new institutional grantors, and a growing individual donor base, we enhanced our distance learning programs, engagement with Title I schools in LAUSD, SMMUSD, and PUSD, and free public programming like our seasonal reDiscover Cardboard City Exhibit and Makerspace. Our vocational training program serves interns and work study students from OTIS, UCLA, LMU, and the Getty Marrow Program as well as young adults served by Safe Place for Youth and Coalition for Engaged Education/C-Youth. reDiscover seeks to grow our impact on low income youth in Los Angeles County by expanding our geographic reach through in-school programs, pop-ups, and opening additional reDiscover Centers.

Today, reDiscover annually serves over 11,000 youth ages 2-18 and nearly 8,000 adults and is the only non-profit organization in Los Angeles that offers this type of sustainable creative programming. We work with more than 50 Los Angeles-area schools, libraries, museums, community centers, social service agencies, and parks departments to coordinate the delivery of our educational programs to targeted populations and the general public throughout the year.