Upstate California Creative Corps is a newly launched grant program which places artists in service to communities across nineteen counties in Northern California. The program is intended to fuel positivity, regain public trust, and inspire health & safety. Funding originates from the California Arts Council, a state agency.

The grant committee encouraged applicants to create projects that delved into the communities residing in the lowest quartile of the California Healthy Places Index. It seemed like a perfect mission for Unlikely Gems, to go investigate and make videos in these "low rated" California places. The project was dubbed "Report Card."

Public Health as Upstate Grant Goal

Public health is one of the Upstate grant's program goals, and has to do with the art of improving the health of people and their communities, promoting healthy lifestyles, and encouraging practices that nourish individuals and communities. 

The thesis of the Report Card project is that humans feel separated—isolated from each other and disconnected within communities. Low income communities can also experience separation from the idea that other (often more affluent) communities are better than their own. 

What makes us feel a part of our town, a part of life? We believe that this sense of belonging is a root cause associated with the health of populations. How can we cultivate more belonging, and thus nourish the well-being of communities?  

This project addresses this challenge in an unconventional way. By celebrating unique attributes of a place, we cultivate a sense of belonging, safety, and connection among community members. Furthermore, the project aims to invoke a sense of humor and playfulness as it investigates a place. 

The artists believe in humor as medicine and see it as an integral part of community well-being. Delving into communities with the magical elixir of celebration and humor, this project aims to bring humans closer together and help create healthy community. The published output is a series of social media videos, as well as written short stories, observations, and notes from behind-the-scenes.

This project seeks to:

• Build community health through deeper love of place, deeper connection to community 

• Be an optimistic look at the world we live in, seeing beauty in unlikely places around us  

• Inspire a curiosity to get in touch with one's neighborhood and its unique qualities

• Shift the perspective of a place by telling a new narrative

• Provide a bridge to a place and an experience

• Boost community pride

• Bring a sense of humor