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Community ARTS is a creative youth development pathway that co-creates accessible, expressive art + nature education, practices, and experiences for youth in National City and the wider South Bay. This line of expressive art programs prioritizes positive mental and behavioral health outcomes and offers non-clinical integrated creative programming alongside other community-based organizations. These programs promote arts, culture, and nature-based experiences as transformative pathways for self-regulation, community cohesion, and fostering a sense of belonging and togetherness.

The Seed to Table Program, a partnership between the Red Earth Movement and Coastal Roots Farm, addresses mental health disparities among Indigenous youth by reconnecting them to ancestral food traditions and nature. This two-part solution combines immersive farm experiences with the development of community garden spaces. Youth learn to grow, harvest, and prepare food while fostering cultural identity, resilience, and self-worth. The program promotes mental well-being through hands-on engagement, cultural reconnection, and access to nature.

Roots of Resilience (RoR) addresses mental and behavioral health disparities among ethnically and culturally diverse immigrant, refugee, and first-generation youth in San Diego. Partners integrate art, culture, and nature-based interventions—e.g., gardening, cooking, exercise, and traditional crafts—through a cultural heritage lens to foster well-being, resilience, and community connection. This holistic, culturally grounded approach is an innovative, scalable model that can improve youth mental health outcomes and reduce disparities.

By integrating mental health curriculum into film and art contests, this programming places youth at the center of the solution to create safe places where young people feel seen, heard, connected, and supported in reaching out for help. Youth learn about mental health through the lens of different cultures, apply what they learn to film and art projects, and share their work through events and campaigns to reduce disparities and promote well-being among their peers.