VERA: VERI ET RECTI AMICI: TRUE AND SINCERE FRIENDS

The Vera Project (Vera) is what every teenager wants, a music-arts center run by and for youth. By engaging participants at all levels of music production and community organizing, Vera strives to fulfill its mission to fuel personal and community transformation through the vehicle of popular music shows produced in partnership with young people in Seattle.

Since its inception in 2000, Vera has provided a unique resource to Seattle’s youth and music community by maintaining a safe, alcohol and smoke free environment for people of all ages to come together and experience music in a way that transcends commercial entertainment and erases divisions between performer, staff, and audience. Vera uses its downtown location as a means to bridge the divisions that exist between neighborhoods and bring people together in a neutral and open space. Weekly concerts and events fuse with educational programming and a participatory governance structure to give young people an empowering, inclusive sense of music that stresses their ability to positively affect their surroundings, both within the organization and in their daily lives.

Vera takes the primacy of music in young people’s lives as an opportunity to create learning experiences, building self-awareness, and self-esteem in an audience with few chances to express itself otherwise. Through these learning experiences and an emphasis on the process of popular music, Vera promotes critical thinking, empathy, emotional intelligence, and civic participation. Vera uses the power of music as a primary vehicle with which to develop a community of healthy, compassionate, and innovative individuals. Vera’s passionate, patient, and professional approach to popular music has opened up new worlds to thousands of young people, many of whom have never actively taken part in their communities before. Vera kids become great adults.

Beyond simply presenting music shows, Vera seeks to fulfill a specific need in the community. Vera is the only dedicated all-ages music venue in Seattle that 1) offers access to education and participation to young people who want to pursue their music-related interests, 2) provides emerging musicians the opportunity to perform and gain exposure in a professional environment, and 3) combines quality late-night all-ages entertainment with diverse music-arts programming.