¡OYE! Group’s ‘Come to the Corner’ program gets its name from the history of street corners serving as places where communities would come together to celebrate, protest, or organize. The COVID-19 pandemic deeply fractured our community, and we started our Corner programming- free monthly workshops for children and adults to explore poetry, architecture, and literacy- as a way of keeping our community engaged during the pandemic. ¡OYE! Group’s ‘Come to the Corner’ programming is a chance to begin to rebuild our communal spirit. These three workshops give our community safe spaces to come together, and furthermore, offers free artistic tools and education to empower them to process their experience through art.

Language, literature, and art are how we express and understand ourselves both individually and communally. Essential to our ‘Come to the Corner’ programming is the fact that our workshops are led by local artists. In this way, we offer our community tools and education crafted by their peers, members of the community who speak the same languages and share similar life experiences which inform the literature they gravitate toward and shape their art. Through our workshops we facilitate individuals creating their own unique pieces, as well as provide a space for these individuals to share their art with one another, building community.