MCG founder Bill Strickland is changing students’ lives one creative learning center at time

Photo above of a student at HOPE Center courtesy of KDKA-TV.

Bill Strickland grew up in a poor neighborhood of Pittsburgh and became a MacArthur Genius Grant fellow, turning his love for making ceramics into a youth arts center and vocational school and opening them around the world. Strickland recently retired from running the Manchester Bidwell Center on the North Side, but this isn’t the end. In fact, it’s the beginning of a new chapter – a start-up called the Strickland Global Leadership Institute (SGLI).

One place that’s benefitting from being a part of SGLI is the HOPE Center for Arts and Technology in Sharon, Pa.

From the soothing sounds of a water fountain and the ample natural light from large windows to the beauty of art hanging on the walls and displayed in cases everywhere, it’s clear that HOPE Center is special.

“This is not your traditional vocational school or arts program,” Strickland says. “This is the future, and when you’re here, you’re allowed to dream, and we are going to reflect that in everything that we do with you.”

One of Strickland’s primary philosophies is that environment drives behavior. All 17 centers — modeled after the original, which started in 1968 in Pittsburgh’s Manchester neighborhood — are beautifully designed.

“If you bring people into a facility that’s dark and the pipes are leaking and there’s no enthusiasm, that’s what you get in terms of your student body,” Strickland says. “So we said now we’re going to flip this thing on its head.”

Levi Freeman is in the 10-month Medical Assistant Training program at HOPE Center for Arts and Technology, or HOPE C.A.T., so he can further his career. He’s going tuition free – all paid for by grants.

“Right after graduating, I don’t have to worry about starting my career and having that burden of all that debt of a four-year degree,” Freeman said.

From opportunities for new vocations to exposure to an art form for the first time, HOPE C.A.T. is transforming lives like those of the kids in a leadership program who met with Strickland when he visited the center.

“It’s been deeply inspiring for me and just ignited this love of ceramics and this love of sculpting that I have now,” says high school junior and HOPE C.A.T. art student Tessalyn Massey.

Strickland explains that the keys are the center’s beautiful environment, caring instructors and culture of hope: “Hope is the commodity that can change this conversation,” he says. “I don’t care if it’s Pittsburgh or Westmoreland County or the Sudan in Africa – that medicine works.”

There are now 17 centers like this with vocational and or youth arts training including five in Pennsylvania and three overseas including one in Israel where Jews and Palestinians are taking classes together — an example of the transformative nature of the centers.

Strickland is confident Ireland will be the location for a new center, part of his next chapter of SGLI, which has 3 goals: To work with communities to build new centers, to support the existing centers, and to open an academy to teach people how to start centers which could lead to exponential growth for generations to come.

“We’re here to take the wisdom of these 17 centers and help a community apply that and whatever makes sense in their community,” Strickland Global Leadership Institute President Anthony Cascione explains.

Cascione says it all goes back to Strickland’s original inspiration from his mom and his art teacher at Oliver High School in Pittsburgh who sparked his love of ceramics.

At HOPE C.A.T. in the ceramics studio that used to be a school gym, you see Strickland’s vision in practice. The ethos of art is alleviating what he calls the “cancer of the human spirit,” giving hope and opportunity to those who come here and spreading that hope to their community and beyond.

“Rather than retire to the old age home,” Strickland says, “I decided, no, I’m going to try to change the planet one city at a time.”

In addition to starting SGLI, there’s also a documentary movie about Bill Strickland and the centers coming out soon. We’ll keep you posted on when and where you can see it. Hear more from Bill Strickland on the Kidsburgh Podcast.