Spotlight: Art in Action — Lions & Rabbits and Heritage Works, Two Arts Orgs Healing Michigan Neighborhoods
- John Sloan III
- Sep 16
- 4 min read
Michigan Arts Orgs to Support | Sept 16, 2025
Two Michigan-based arts organizations are bridging creativity and community healing. Lions & Rabbits Center for the Arts in Grand Rapids and Heritage Works in Detroit champion BIPOC leadership, cultural expression, and public art with deeply rooted missions. Both are doing transformative work—and both need your support.
Lions & Rabbits Center for the Arts | www.lionsandrabbits.com | @lionsandrabbits
Mission
“Lions & Rabbits fosters creative community development through strategy, transformative placemaking, and workforce development.”
Vision
Thriving communities where creativity drives equitable socio-economic development. A world where creative innovation is at the forefront of community and economic development.
What they do
Activate public spaces through murals, painted crosswalks, storm drain art, and block parties.
Provide artists with paid opportunities, supplies, networking, and logistical support so they can sustain freelance careers. (Lions & Rabbits Center for the Arts)
Run signature events such as After Dark GR, community art markets, public art installations, and neighborhood activation programs.
Programs (in their own words)
Public Placemaking
Our public spaces often hold a silent promise. While resting dormant as underutilized assets, these areas await an awakening to transform them from mere open spaces into life-filled centers of community engagement.
Recognizing this untapped potential, LRCFA strategically activates these areas to align with municipal master plans, infusing life, meaning, and purpose into our neighborhood landscapes. We bring a spectrum of creative solutions tailored to different needs and timescales.
Community Placemaking Strategies
We recognize that the key to community and economic development is not just artistic expression but strategic planning, active involvement, and tailored solutions that resonate with each unique community.
Our Colorful Pathways Program streamlines procedures to ensure efficiency and effectiveness, enabling communities to turn ideas into action swiftly. Our comprehensive toolkits for plug-and-play arts initiatives facilitate easy adoption and customization in diverse settings.
Focus Areas
Public Health
Art is a powerful tool for promoting physical, mental, and emotional well-being. Our initiatives aim to create environments that inspire healthy behaviors and foster a sense of belonging.
Environmental Health
Our projects celebrate the interconnectedness of human and ecological health. Through creative interventions, we raise awareness about environmental challenges and inspire stewardship of our shared spaces.
Socio-Economic Health
We use arts and culture as strategies for inclusive economic development, skills training, and community wealth building. Our goal is to create opportunities for all residents to thrive.
Synergistics
We understand that real change requires a holistic, cross-sector approach. We foster collaborations and systems thinking to address the root causes of complex community challenges.
Our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Statement
At Lions & Rabbits Center for the Arts, an inclusive and equitable workplace is where all employees and volunteers, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, national origin, age, sexual orientation or identity, education, or disability, feel valued and respected. We are committed to a non-discriminatory approach and provide equal employment and advancement opportunities in our departments and programs. We respect and value diverse life experiences and heritages and ensure that all voices are valued and heard.
We are committed to striving for diversity and inclusion for the entire arts industry of the non-profit sector and to maintaining an inclusive environment with equitable treatment for all.
Ways to Support:
There are many ways to support Lions & Rabbits. Donate through their Network for Good donor portal or get involved as a volunteer.
Heritage Works | www.heritageworks.org | @heritageworks
Mission
“Heritage Works promotes youth and community development through cultural traditions, arts and education. Our programs encourage personal, artistic and community excellence by promoting cultural understanding, skill and tool development, and cultural fluency.”
What we stand for...
We believe that cultural arts and traditions provide rich resources for developing artistic and critical thinking skills, broadening perspectives and promoting cross-cultural understanding.
We believe youth development is comprehensive, involves the entire family, and is essential to meeting the educational, economic, and social needs of communities.
We believe that human performance is enhanced by environments that appreciate and encourage diversity and communities that encourage each of us to understand and take pride in ourselves, our backgrounds, and our communities.
We believe traditions are essential to empowering people; that empowering individuals enables them to reach their highest mental, emotional, spiritual and physical potentials; and provides an opportunity to create vibrant communities that promote a sense of worth, respect, understand and responsibility in its residents.
History
Heritage Works was founded in December of 2000 as African Dance Works. From the start we worked to preserve and showcase the African heritage, and illuminate relationships between American and African traditions. Our original focus was primarily dance and related art forms. We've since expanded our focus, and taken the name Heritage Works. With our new name comes a wider scope of cultural programming, which includes the traditions and the arts of Africa and the Diaspora.
What They Do
We believe that cultural traditions provide rich resources for promoting personal and artistic excellence. Our mission is to promote youth and community development through cultural traditions, arts and education. We accomplish our mission through two programs: Youth Works and Community Works.
Offer youth & community arts programs that preserve and celebrate African and African Diaspora cultural traditions—dance, drumming, storytelling, visual and performing arts.
Youth Works and Community Works are core programs: arts education, after-school/summer programs for youth, and community-driven cultural events.
Developing the North Corktown Culture Hub on a former elementary school site: mixed-use arts & program spaces, retail/market, green space, partnerships for early childhood services, etc.
Youth Works
Youth Works serves youth and young adults ages through education, performance and career/workforce development programming.
Heritage in Schools
Youth Ensemble
Work Arts
Culture Cypher Podcast
Community Works
Also known as Call and Response, Community Works uses the power of art to respond to our community's demands for unique programming, providing one-time activities such as head wrapping workshops to ongoing activities such as community engagement and place keeping.
Visiting Artist/Tradition Bearer Workshops
Intersections Part
North Corktown Placekeeping
Culture Cyper Podcast
Ways To Give:
Heritage Works offers multiple ways of getting involved. Those interested in supporting can visit www.heritageworks.org/get_involved/
Why These Orgs Matter
Both Heritage Works and Lions & Rabbits show that art is powerful not only as expression but as action: reclaiming public space, anchoring neighborhoods, connecting youth to their heritage, and building creative economies. Your support helps them sustain what has already started—and expand what’s possible.
Do you work for or know of an organization that needs support? Use this link to submit them for the weekly feature.
