Voices, Venues, & Vibes
Voices, Venues, & Vibes Pilot Events Take Off in Fall of 2025
Image: by Anya K. Stephenson (AKS EDITIONS LLC)
In April of 2025, a group of Torrington community leaders, cultural professionals, and town natives, participated in an AIR Collaborative workshop through the CT Office of the Arts. The goal of this workshop was to pinpoint an ongoing issue in Torrington and learn how to work together to come up with a creative solution to alleviate said issue.
The group concluded that it was hard to engage the local youth in community and civic life; finding there was no space to allow for the next generation of community leaders to voice their opinions and concerns about current events in town, or find careers paths with local organizations or in local politics.
The group would come up with Voices, Venues, and Vibes (VVV); an event series aimed to empower the local youth to voice their opinions, engage with local organizations, like the venues who help host the events, and vibe while they make new friends and professional connections.
The group held three events on the first Friday of each month, beginning on Friday, September 5.
Images: VVV at the Torrington Historical Society on Friday, September 5; by Anya K. Stephenson (AKS EDITIONS LLC)
The group organized music and provided art supplies and different projects for participants enjoy while they mingled and partook in free refreshments.
Images: VVV @ KidsPlay & the Warner Costume Shop on Friday, October 3; by Steph Burr
During the last hour, attendees were provided with the option to take the mic to share ideas and suggestions on how we can work together to improve the town culture, get more young people involved in the community, and talk about what makes them proud to be from Torrington!
Images: VVV at the Torrington Historical Society on Friday, November 7; by Anya K. Stephenson (AKS EDITIONS LLC)
At the end of each event, participants got to share ideas and upcoming projects, made new connections, created some beautiful mini works of art to take home, and found themselves excited for the next event!
Thank you to all the people who were involved in the creation of the VVV!
Thank you to the CT Office of the Arts for funding the first three events in this series!
