Creative Economy & ARPA with Jennifer Gaskin

Part 3/8 from our mini-season: ARPA Funding in Worcester

We are back with another episode of Public Hearing’s ARPA Funding in Worcester mini-series, with our guest, Jennifer Gaskin, president of the Worcester Caribbean American Carnival Association, which organizes the incredible Worcester Caribbean Festival to showcase some of the arts and culture in our community. This week we are discussing how ARPA dollars can be used to promote Arts & Culture and the local creativity and innovation that Worcester is known for as well as what we as community members might consider advocating for as these funds are distributed. 

Learn more about how Worcester plans to spend ARPA dollars on the City website.

Public Hearing is a podcast from Action! by Design about our home city of Worcester, Massachusetts and the people we should be listening to—residents, artists, activists, community leaders, storytellers, and those most impacted by issues facing our city. Our mission is to cultivate community through equity, inclusion, and design, and that work starts at home.

Want to be the first to listen to new episodes? Tune in Wednesdays at 6pm on WICN 90.5FM, Worcester's only NPR affiliate station. Not in the Worcester area? No worries, you can listen live at WICN.org

Transcript for this episode

Hello Worcester and the world, Josh Croke here, your host of Public Hearing, a podcast and radio show about Worcester MA and listening to the people who live work and experience challenges related to systemic and structural oppression here. On Public Hearing, we engage community members addressing social problems in a way that centers, equity, justice, and the pursuit of joy filled futures for everyone. We're continuing our conversations about the approximate 146 million in funding. The city of Worcester is receiving from the American Rescue Plan Act, also known as ARPA in our last two episodes. You heard from Gina Plata-Nino our intro episode, where we talked about some of the logistical details surrounding ArPA, including the formation of some ad hoc committees. The city manager is appointing that will guide decisions on how some, not all of this money will be spent. One of those areas is arts and culture. And so we're talking with Jen Gaskin, president of the Worcester Caribbean American Carnival Association, who organizes the incredible Worcester Caribbean festival to talk arts culture community, and what we as community members might consider advocating for as these funds are distributed. This is the Public Hearing podcast.

Joshua Croke (01:10):

We had Jen Gaskin on the show back in March of 2021 to talk about building community wealth. And I'm happy to have Jen back with us today to talk about her work and our community's arts and culture sector, and in some considerations for how we truly center the priorities for ARPA funding which is focused on supporting folks most disproportionately impacted by the pandemic specifically low-income communities and communities of color. Welcome back, Jen.

Jennifer Gaskin (01:36):

Hello. Hello. Glad to be back

Joshua Croke (01:38):

It's great to have you back before we dive in. I want to invite you to share any affiliations experiences or any part of your social location that you'd like to bring into this space today for our listeners.

Jennifer Gaskin (01:49):

Certainly, so as you stated, my name is Jennifer Gaskin. I consider myself a black Caribbean American person. I am married, I have three children and really my children are the reason that, you know, I embarked on the project of developing the Caribbean American Carnival here in Worcester. My two younger children were born here in Worcester and really, you know, when they started to get into their school communities, I realized that they didn't really have a connection to their culture. You know, like my daughter in kindergarten talking about going on school, you know, school break or whatever, and she's traveling to Trinidad and people are like, what is Trinidad? You know? And so I wanted to be able to give them something that they could then say, you know, this is who I am, and this is who I come from, and this is where I come from, and this is my culture.

Jennifer Gaskin (02:40):

And as we began to really, you know, get involved in the community of Worcester we saw that there actually is, you know, a Caribbean community out here. Primarily I would say, you know, Jamaican Trinidadian there's a number of St. Lucian families locally as well, you know, obviously other islands, but there was no real central way that we could come together and, and unite as a community and be able to share our culture and become part of the fabric of Worcester. So that was really where that came from.

Joshua Croke (03:17):

And for listeners who have not been the Caribbean festival's amazing in Worcester. And how many years has it been going on now?

Jennifer Gaskin (03:24):

So absent the COVID year eight years. So this year cross our fingers that we don't get back into some spike or something will be, you know, year nine. Last year we did kind of a smaller you know, production just to get the community out and kind of, you know, get a little bit of the festivities back going. But hopefully this year we'll be doing a full scale event, which includes a procession from city hall down to Institute Park. And then at Institute Park, we have vendors, you know, all types of different food artisans, different things. And we have like, usually like a concert of some sort with an artist and some DJs and, and just, you know, a really nice family day to bring out your family, get to see the colors and the music and smell the food. And like you said, it's just really, you know, an enjoyable that we get to connect as a community as the Caribbean community, and then connect to our broader, you know, community of Worcester. And frankly, we get, you know, a lot of people from, you know, surrounding, you know, Boston, Providence, Hartford, Springfield, et cetera. So it's a good way to not only showcase Worcester and our culture, but also, you know, connecting to the broader community.

Joshua Croke (04:44):

And one of the priorities in, or one of the earmarks that money can be used for in ARPA is like cultural and tourism based like events. And I want to talk a little bit about the realities of organizing as well, knowing the complexity of organizing festival, having been involved in a handful of festival organizing myself, there are so many hurdles and barriers that cities can put up or remove for folks in community to be able to build these spaces absolutely. To celebrate culture. And so I want to talk with you a little bit about what are some of your experiences related to, you know, forming and garnering support from capital C city, as well as like the broader community and bringing the Caribbean festival here.

Jennifer Gaskin (05:29):

To be honest you know, despite us being here in the Worcester community from several years now it's always been a challenge from the very first year, you know, all the way through, it's been a challenge. You know, we're not like for example, the St Patrick's day festival where there's a lot of collateral that can be put into that businesses participate, political candidates participate, et cetera. You know, we don't get that kind of support from the community. And not necessarily because they don't want to, right. Like we have, you know, local Caribbean and African and cetera businesses, but really, you know, their work to get their bottom line, to keep their doors open. So the ability to be able to, you know, provide significant support or sponsorship to, you know, our organization is really, you know, out of their reach.

Jennifer Gaskin (06:29):

Whereas again, a different demographic has more collateral can, you know, support their events more. So all also things like, you know, going to local banks or institutions, you know, they don't really necessarily recognize us as arts and culture. Right. They think, okay, you know, they play loud music and dance in the street and they don't connect the arts and the culture piece about it. You be at how many times I have to explain to people like this is not like nobody goes to like target and buys a cost, right? Like this is months of, you know, design hand put together, assembled cetera. So it's not, you know, I get inquiries all the time where they're like, we're having this event. It would be great if you could come with your carnival and it's like, doesn't work like that. Right. Like, there's just, you know, even though we've been out here for so long, there's just not a conscious effort in the community to understand and support.

Jennifer Gaskin (07:36):

When we talk about the city you know, again, lots of challenges there. And you know, it goes back to how, how the city is organized and, and how the city you know, sees itself. Right. So if you go on the city of Worcester, the website, there's a special event handbook, and it teaches you how to, or walks you through the steps that you need to take to organize a large scale event in the city of Worcester. What it doesn't tell you is it doesn't tell you for example, if you wanna do something in the park, you have to fill out an application to the park. The park commission gets to approve a IU, right? So you have to go up in front of the committee, present your idea. They get to ask you questions and say yes or no, we're gonna approve your permit.

Jennifer Gaskin (08:28):

On top of that, the parks and recs department you know, decides how many, how many employees you need on that day, right? So now you paying for employees, you're paying for renting the park. Then you're paying for trash pickup. In most cases, especially around the city of Worcester, you're gonna have to get portable toilets, which also have to be permitted and put through the inspection services inspection services has a cost. So if you, so for our event, we have food vendors. So food vendors have to get food permits, right? So food permits, they have a program where if you are a nonprofit that you're are able to get bundled food permits, and it's a lesser cost. If not, you have to pay per permit. We are registered 5 0 1 [inaudible] [inaudible], however, it's at the discretion of the city, whether or not they're gonna give you that, that bulk cost.

Jennifer Gaskin (09:30):

So for the, for the eight years that we've been doing it, we pay our to, you know, for each vendor of $55. We pay for police details, right? So, and again, that's something that you have to go in, apply for, they can approve or deny you. And then they get to say, this is how much of the police force you need to have out there, and you are required to pay for that. If you're utilizing spaces where you're gonna be blocking meters, you have to pay for the meters. So as you can see, the numbers are just adding up. I mean, we usually have a significant number of food vendors that use fire. So now we have to also pay for fire permit, right. And then if you're over a certain threshold and they decide, oh, you need a fire detail. So as you can see those numbers, just keep adding up. And at the end of the day, you know, we can be, you know, outside of any other expenses, just paying the city know $15,000 to do an event.

Joshua Croke (10:40):

And so there's complexity there, and there's also so much discretion exactly That the city has to really arbitrarily, or I'm sure that there are, you know, biases and histories that play into how these decisions are made that limit people's ability to put these things on or make it even more of a monumental leap to make these things happen. Right.

Jennifer Gaskin (11:06):

So like, if you're just trying to start out and you're, you know, you wanna do a festival for your community or whatever you're representing, or wanna do, you know, just get, you know, downloading a 20 page handbook, you know, that's already, you know, and understanding that, okay, you need to be at this meeting. And then you have meetings that are held at one o'clock in the afternoon. I mean, I don't know about anybody else, but I have a job. Right. So again, you limit certain people's ability to even get through the process.

Joshua Croke (11:43):

Right. And I wanna hit on a little bit, and in some ways, this is a leading question, but I think it's important for people to be regularly reminded of the importance arts and culture play in our communities and you were talking about this a little bit. So maybe instead of asking, like the, why I'll ask, how do you feel arts and culture has an impact on our communities and the role that it plays in like healing celebration and advocacy?

Jennifer Gaskin (12:06):

Absolutely, I mean, even, you know, last year we did like a Jamboree. We just did basically a block party in downtown Worcester. And people were just so excited just to be outside and see each other and be in some kind of environment where it was a positive environment. And, you know, there were people that had were out there for the first time. There were people who have come, you know, years before, but it was that reconnection with your, with your community. That was important. And, you know, anytime that we're, you know, as a organization presenting the carnival, we're presenting it as an opportunity to educate. Right. And I feel like as we educate each other about our difference in our culture, then we start to see, you know, how we're connected. Right. you know, we have a Vanessa Yoga who participates every year, her organization and is Guardians of Tradition.

Jennifer Gaskin (13:06):

And they are from the Dominican Republic. And we're always talking about the synergy, you know, across the Caribbean and our culture that we would never know existed unless we embarked on this journey together. Right. We would never know that that existed there's synergy between, you know, the Caribbean culture in New Orleans, Mardi Gras Brazil, you know, same thing. So it's like, everybody's coming out and saying, Hey, I see myself in this. And then maybe, you know, when you go to school or you go to work, or you go just out in the community, you're better able to relate to the next person, because you can see that, you know what, we're not that different. You know, we share certain things or, you know, just, you know, my kids or other people's children going out into the community and being able to say, Hey, this is who I am.

Jennifer Gaskin (14:00):

And people could say, oh, I know, I know about that. I know who you are, you know, and being more, just accepting of one another, because we're learning about one another and you know, embracing one another's culture, because ultimately that's, you know, that's what city is like, it's all these different people here living and, you know, exploring and, and interacting. So we should know more about each other and we should understand each other. And I feel like arts and culture is one of the ways that, you know, we can share with one another and it's not in your face type of way. It's a more comfortable way where we can see, okay, we are the same

Joshua Croke (14:43):

And communities that like celebrate and embrace the diversity of their, their communities in our case, the city of Worcester are when done correctly are thriving, absolutely innovative, agile, resilient spaces.

Jennifer Gaskin (14:58):

You know, when I think when I talk about the Caribbean carnival, the largest Caribbean carnival and, and north America is in Toronto and Toronto is a hugely diverse city. When they present Carabana annually, they bring 2 million visitors to the city and the whole city is like alive. And, you know, everybody's out and everybody's enjoying, and everybody's, you know, participating in this, you know, thing, that's become like a fabric of, of the city. And because of that, the city supports it and the city embraces it because not only does it bring people to the city, it also helps to heal like you were talking about earlier heal, you know, because you can stand next to that person that, you know, maybe there was something going on and, you know, now we can stand next to each other in a festive environment.

Joshua Croke (15:56):

Absolutely. And the money that is comes in as well, you know, all the, city's obviously gonna talk about bottom line and economy, of course. And so the mass cultural council actually surveyed artists and cultural organizations five times, like throughout the pandemic, understand the economic impacts on the lake arts and culture sector. And so they say that we know COVID related closures and cancellations were devastating to artists and cultural organizations between March 2020 and February, 2021. They reported more than 600 million in lost revenue in personal income. And that more than 30 sector jobs were impacted statewide. And then they continue to talk about like the percentage of like our, you know, state's GDP, like our gross domestic product, what money we're bringing in due to arts and cultural organizations. And so in the most recent budget that I've seen for the city's ARPA priorities, there is a $4.5 million allocation for creative economy. And so how would you talk about, you know, the creative economy and what are, what would be some of your hopes for this money that we're receiving for our creative economy and for our arts and culture sector? What are some of the hopes that you see that money go toward?

Jennifer Gaskin (17:09):

I would hope that they would invest more in kind of how would I put it, the infrastructure, right? Like supporting organizations and supporting spaces that welcome arts and culture. You know, one of the things that I noticed right away when I move to Worcester or is there's not a lot of spaces to go like as a cultural organization or as a, you know, person if you're an artist, where do you go to display your work? You know, if as, as a cultural organization who wants to push forward the dialogue and education, where do I go to present?

Jennifer Gaskin (17:51):

You know, anything, you know, if I wanna do panel discussions, or if I wanna do displays of work, if I wanna do workshops in the community, where do I go to do that? I mean, I know we have JMac, but again, that's, that's a city run entity with, with rules and stipulations, and it doesn't really give flexibility to, to organizations like, you know, as a cultural organization, what about having a, a center that we can allow people to come to for, for resources and education and, and support and help them to integrate into the city. And we don't have access to space.

Joshua Croke (18:32):

And I think a present point that comes forward for me, there is yes, more diversity of space. And also, how do, how does the city support communicating with its residents? What things exist and like where to go, this is like the sprinkler factory. Right? Exactly. And then also holding our organizations and our institutions accountable to the barriers that have been in place, you know, historically in present day, that limit the ability for certain folks in our community to go into those spaces and feel accepted and feel represented exactly

Jennifer Gaskin (19:07):

In those spaces, spaces. Exactly. Cause it, you know, if you are a person who, you know, yeah. You know, maybe I wanna go out and look at some artwork. Right. But do I feel comfortable going into, you know, arts Worcester, you know, does do people look like me, are the artists being presented, representative of my community, whatever that may be, you know? And are we encouraging our youth to be involved in arts and culture? Are we, are we putting forth infrastructure for them to be, you know, involved? I do think obviously, you know, there is a place to, you know, give grants for events and activities and things like that. But the act tools, supporting infrastructure for the diverse arts and culture community is really in my mind what we need, you know, if I'm an artist and I'm at, you know, south high or where one of the high schools or whatever, like how do I take my art when I leave school and become, you know, an artist professionally give us, you know, show them, you know, business, you know, how cultural, you know, arts business, like how do they develop that?

Joshua Croke (20:25):

Absolutely. Yeah. And, and I think, you know, there are organizations and institutions that are doing Equity work,

Jennifer Gaskin (20:33):

Who are doing it, but let's bubble it up. Right. And if the city has the opportunity with this funding, let's, let's bubble that up so that people know that it's there and, and we're able to support the community as a whole.

Joshua Croke (20:49):

So there's also a 10 million line item for what's quoted as community determined priorities. In addition to around 26 million of unbudgeted funds related to this conversation, how do you hope the city and these ad hoc committees being formed by the city manage to engage the community to best determine these priorities in accessible in an equitable way.

Jennifer Gaskin (21:11):

And I think, you know, we are out here, we're doing the work. Like it's not that hard to figure out who's out here doing the work, you know, are we creating more barriers by having committees and creating processes, the people to get access to the funding, you know, should the city be going out and, and looking and finding, should it, should it be the organizations going to them or should the city be going out there and finding it because there are, or like you said, there are people out here doing the work.

Joshua Croke (21:44):

I think you raised like an incredible point and something that we've talked about on the show a lot is it's one thing, and yes, should this always be an invitation for people to come in and, you know, have access to folks at city hall to ask these questions. Yes. But should it not be as much of, if not more of a priority for people sitting in these

Jennifer Gaskin (22:07):

To get structures

Joshua Croke (22:09):

Into the community,

Jennifer Gaskin (22:09):

Right. Because that's what they're there for. Like the city councilors are elected by us. You know, people, the city manager is appointed by the city council. Like you guys are representations of your community. You should be in your community. The example that I usually give people is mayor Thomas Menino in Boston, like we, everybody knew who mayor Menino was. Everybody knew who he was. Even the kids in school knew who mayor Menino was. Why? Because he was everywhere. He was everywhere. If violence happened, he showed up. He wasn't, he didn't have fear to go to anybody's community to anything. He was everywhere in the community and everybody knew him. And he was willing to talk to anybody, whether you were a two year old and you wanted to shake his hand, or you were an 85 year old that wanted to complain about like trash pickup or whatever.

Jennifer Gaskin (23:03):

Like he was always there and out in the community. And that's why the community supported him know, for example, with the Caribbean Carnival in Boston, you know, they've struggled with, with violence over the years. And there was been many times where they've said, oh, we don't wanna have this event because you know, it causes, you know, X, Y, and Z, which that's a whole other conversation. But you know, there was a time when they, you know, where the community saying, no, we don't want this. And me Menino went to the community. He went to the carnival committee and said, how do I support you? How do I help you make this a success and a safe event? So, you know, it's about getting out there and serving your constituents, right? It's frankly, it's our tax dollars that are paying for everybody to be in that building and for the lights to be on, in that building and for the water to flow in that building.

Jennifer Gaskin (24:04):

So we should be getting something out of it and we shouldn't have to go and beat on the door to get a response. We, you know, and people think, you know, everybody has a computer. Everybody knows how to get, everybody doesn't know how to do that. Everybody doesn't have access to a computer everybody's reading level isn't such that they can sit and leave through the, special events handbook and figure it out, or go through a grants application and be able to access ARPA funds. That's not true. So the city needs to think about how do we meet the people where they are, how do we truly than what the needs of the community is, whether it's arts and culture, you know, whatever demographic or topic that they're on, how do we meet the community where they are and bring them forward. Otherwise, you know, all these different things that we see happening around the community in the city, you know, people talk about Polar Park, you know, the homeless people under the bridge, like what a you know, diverse thing. You're literally at Polar Park and then drive two seconds down the road and there's, you know, homeless people under a bridge

Joshua Croke (25:19):

And making people invisible is not solving a problem. Right.

Jennifer Gaskin (25:22):

Right. You don't put spikes out, you know, wherever that was, where they threw spikes out. So people wouldn't

Joshua Croke (25:27):

Right on the park, benches and things. So people wouldn't sleep there. Exactly.

Jennifer Gaskin (25:30):

That's not what you do. You figure out what the problem is and you try to resolve it. I don't think that, you know, as a city, we can't, of course we can have nice things. We can have Polar Park, but you don't have Polar Park at the expense of the broad community. We, of course, we should have development. We should, you know, improve how the city looks and the accessibility of the city and the things that the city has, but you don't do that at the expense of the community that's already there. You figure out how to bring them along in it.

Joshua Croke (26:03):

Exactly. And like enable growth for exactly the people who live. He here in these spaces before prioritizing, how do we bring in new dollars and new people that will just place our community. Exactly. Absolutely. And so we are actually close to time and it's always so great to you. And I

Jennifer Gaskin (26:23):

Just talk for hours

Joshua Croke (26:24):

That's right. We absolutely could. And so to wrap it up, I just wanna like, thank you for, for being here. If you had one question that you would ask the capital C city, the city manager, as it relates to ARPA and funding priorities for arts and culture and our creative economy, what might that be?

Jennifer Gaskin (26:42):

I think I would say, are you really, my question would be, are you really committed to change?

Joshua Croke (26:48):

Fantastic.

Jennifer Gaskin (26:49):

Are you really committed to change? And I think that that even goes beyond the opera funding that goes to, to everything that they're doing. Are you really committed to change?

Joshua Croke (26:58):

Thank you, Jen. Thank you listeners for listening to Public Hearing our podcast and radio show that airs Wednesdays at 6:00 PM on WICN 90.5 FM Worcester’s only NPR affiliate station and can be heard wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm your host, Joshua Croke. And we put this show together to celebrate community and bring folks into conversations about equitable jaw and joy centered development and growth here in Worcester. Very much about embracing change and looking at how we as a community foster change together. If you're listening and wanna support the show point, your friends to publichearing.co, share it on Facebook, add it to your Linktree on Instagram, make a TikTok, whatever the cool thing is to do these days. Our audio producer is Giuliano D’Orazio, who also made our show music also, thanks to Molly Gammon and Kellee Kosiorek, who also support the production of this show. The work continues Worcester, and as always, thanks for listening.