Randy Cohen, vice president of research at Americans for the Arts, spoke at a luncheon for cultural leaders at San Jose City Hall on Friday, November 3, 2023. (Sal Pizarro/Bay Area News Group)
We hear all the time about how important the arts are in building a strong community and how they bring real economic benefit to the cities that invest in them. Now there are some numbers to prove this.
The newly released Arts & Economic Prosperity 6 study shows that nonprofit arts and cultural organizations generated $292 million in economic activity in San Jose in 2022 – the bulk of $384.5 million, generated by arts groups throughout Santa Clara County.
Randy Cohen, vice president of research at Americans for the Arts, spoke to nearly 100 cultural and community leaders at a luncheon Friday co-hosted by the city’s Office of Cultural Affairs and SV Creates in the Rotunda of San Jose City Hall the results. San Jose, he said, is a bit of an anomaly compared to the rest of the country, with a stronger comeback in the arts sector since the COVID-19 pandemic shut everything down.
“San Jose has always been a great arts epicenter for the region, and it’s growing and growing and growing,” said Cohen, who grew up in Sunnyvale. “It’s truly an international art destination.”
That $292 million is split into two parts: $192 million for audience activities and $100 million for the organizations themselves, which employ more than 2,800 people and pay for things like electricity and printing. According to the study, viewers spent an average of $43.88 per person per event they attended. This figure doesn’t include entrance fees, but rather expenses for things like food and drink, shopping, childcare and transport – and 24% of participants were local, so they also spent money on accommodation.
A few more interesting statistics about the social impact of the arts: 86.4% of respondents in San Jose said the cultural activity or venue they attended was “a source of neighborhood pride for the community,” and 85 % agreed that they would feel a great sense of loss if an activity or venue were to go away. Kerry Adams Hapner, San Jose’s cultural director, said this is very good news for a downtown recovering from the pandemic.
“It’s been really remarkable to see the growth and resilience and how resilient this sector is,” said Kerry Adams Hapner, San Jose’s cultural director. “If you look at the vibrancy of our downtown and compare the number of our outdoor special events this year to pre-pandemic numbers, we are at 97 percent of those numbers. The city center is back and the arts play a very big role in that.”
So the next time you hear someone say that it’s not worth investing public money in the arts, you can tell them they’re wrong. And we have the receipts to prove it.
STRONG START: Michael Van Every, president of Republic Urban Properties, and his wife, Jennifer Van Every, were smiling and gracious hosts Oct. 27 at a fundraising party for a new fund to support the burn center at Valley Medical Center. They couldn’t have picked a better venue as the 165 guests were among the first to enjoy Copita, the new restaurant and tequila bar on Lincoln Avenue in Willow Glen.
Michael Elliott, executive director of the Valley Health Foundation, left, and Michael Van Every, president of Republic Urban Properties, display a letterman jacket given to Van Every by Santa Clara Valley employees at a ceremony Oct. 27, 2023, at Copita Willow Glen Medical Center for Burns has received in San Jose. (Sal Pizarro/Bay Area News Group)
The Van Everys weren’t the only ones smiling either, as Valley Health Foundation Executive Director Michael Elliott and Dr. Clifford Scheckter was on hand to celebrate the $187,000 raised so far for the Valley Health Foundation’s Michael Van Every Burn Fund – and she and the rest of the burn center staff in attendance presented Van Every with a letterman jacket. Van Every was severely burned in a household accident as a child and decided to start the fund to give back to the VMC doctors and nurses who saved his life.
VMC’s regional burn center is the only one in the Bay Area certified for quality of care by the American Burn Association and the American College of Surgeons, and it is only one of three regional burn centers between Los Angeles and the Oregon border. In 2022, 227 patients were admitted to the burn intensive care unit and an additional 300 patients were cared for by burn center staff in the emergency department and pediatrics. The new fund will help support services for burn patients, drive innovation in medical care and provide mental health and wellbeing support to doctors, nurses and staff working in the department.
POWERFUL VOICE: Viet Thanh Nguyen, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 2016 for his novel “The Sympathizer,” will be in the Rotunda of San Jose City Hall on Monday evening to discuss his new memoir, “A Man of Two Faces,” in which he concerned with both his life as a Vietnamese refugee in San Jose in the 1980s and that of his late mother Linda Kim Nguyen.
He will speak with Cathy Park Hong, author of “Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning,” at the 6:30 p.m. event. Admission is free, but places are limited. Reserve a spot at www.eventbrite.com.
SPARTAN PRIDE: Ken Yeager will come full circle when he delivers this year’s Don Edwards Lecture on Nov. 8 in the San Jose State Student Union Ballroom. Yeager, now executive director of the BAYMEC Community Foundation, was the first openly gay elected official, serving on the San Jose Evergreen Community College District, the San Jose City Council and the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors.
But in 1982, after managing Congressman Don Edwards’ successful re-election campaign in Congress, Yeager was asked to join Edwards’ staff in Washington, DC. Yeager agreed to become press secretary, but knew that there was strong anti-gay sentiment in the nation and wanted to ensure that Edwards was comfortable with the fact that he was gay. Edwards did it, and the rest is history.
The talk, “Coming Out: The Rebound of the LGBTQ+ Community in Silicon Valley,” begins at 7 p.m. and is free and open to the public.
MILESTONE MOMENT: Hunger at Home hosted its 10th annual Bridge the Gap gala on October 28 at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center, the same venue where founder Ewell Sterner first introduced the idea to the Silicon Valley community of potentially wasted food from convention centers and sports arenas take away and hotels and repackage it to feed the hungry.
The effort is still ongoing – and the need is greater than ever – so it was great to see a full house and a litany of sponsors including Team San Jose, Toeniskoetter Family Foundation, Door Dash, Destination: Home, Google, Swenson, Heritage Bank of Commerce, Republic Services and Meriwest Credit Union. You can explore their services, which include weekly food distribution, culinary arts training and full circle catering services, at www.hungerathome.org.
ARIA is kidding?: Opera San Jose General Director Shawna Lucey and her staff have a good sense of humor. For this month’s South First Fridays arts walk, they opened the doors of the California Theater to provide a sneak peek at a rehearsal of the next production, along with music from a string quartet, a Wurlitzer organ performance by Jerry Nagano, and harmonized singing from barbershop quartets . That makes sense in a way, considering the next show is The Barber of Seville, which opens November 11th.
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