Harborlight Youth ArtsAstoria, Oregon / four staff / thirty-one teaching artists
Who we
are.
A small organization with one building, one van and a very simple rule: if a young person wants to make something, the money should never be the reason they cannot.
Fifteen years in the same building on Wharf Street, above what used to be a net loft.
418 Wharf Street — the same building since 2011, above what used to be a net loft
Astoria has about 2,400 young people and one art teacher shared across two schools. In 2011 a group of parents and working artists rented a room above the old net loft, put out donated paper and second-hand easels, and told the high school it was open on Thursdays.
Nineteen students came the first week. We have never charged for a session since, and we have never asked a family what they earn. The building is the same one; the kilns, the press and the darkroom arrived one grant at a time.
Staff
Four people, and thirty-one teaching artists paid by the session
The portraits on this page are linocuts, printed by students in Second Story Press, the teen print lab upstairs.
Marisol Okafor
Runs the place, writes the grants, and still teaches Thursday ceramics because nobody has taken it off her.
Since 2014 marisol@ →
Dev Ramanathan
Books the artists, builds the timetable, and drives the van that collects students from the high school.
Since 2019 dev@ →
Junie Alvarado
Keeps the studios stocked and the kilns running, and knows every student by the work on their bench.
Since 2016 junie@ →
Tomas Bright
Handles the books, the payroll and the filings. The Form 990 you can download is his work, checked by an outside firm.
Since 2021 tomas@ →
Board
Nine members · unpaid · meets six times a year, minutes on request
Priya Sandoval
Chairsince 2018
Aaron Whitcombe
Treasurersince 2020
Nell Okonjo
Secretarysince 2019
Grant Ishikawa
Membersince 2015
Rosalind Meyer
Membersince 2021
Bo Trevino
Membersince 2022
Halima Ferreira
Membersince 2023
Wren Aoki
Membersince 2024
Silas Boateng
Alumni seatsince 2025
One seat on this board is always held by a former student. It is a full seat with a full vote, not an advisory one.
Fifteen years
A rented room above the net loft, open Thursdays. Nineteen students in the first week.
First paid staff member. The programs go from one evening to four.
Two kilns donated by a retiring potter in Seaside. The Clay Room opens.
Building closed for eleven months. Materials were driven to 240 homes instead.
The press arrives. Second Story publishes its first issue that November.
1,140 young people. Six programs. Six students paid to paint the Wharf Street mural.
418 Wharf Street, Astoria, OR 97103
501(c)(3) public charity · EIN 00-0000000