Spark Central to celebrate fifth-year anniversary

Kendall Yards’ Spark Central will throw a week-long celebration this August to commemorate its fifth anniversary.

The nonprofit, designed to expose people of all economic backgrounds to innovative resources, will offer a fashion show, an open mic night and fun for all ages at the anniversary party.

When schools began online learning in the fall of 2020, Spark Central recognized the struggles that accompanied this change for youths. Spark fine-tuned an existing program to help ease the COVID transition: Level Up.

Nicole Adamson-Wood, the development director at Spark Central, described Level Up as a cornerstone of youth programming.

She said, “During the 2020/2021 school year, we served two cohorts from Audubon and Holmes elementary schools. During this time, participants received homework help, social and emotional support, and creative clubs like robotics, coding, and a student-led newspaper.”

The nonprofit hopes to celebrate its innovation with the community from Aug. 24-28. Wilson Faust, the program manager at Spark, said the anniversary is a “great opportunity for us to spend some time reflecting” on Spark’s accomplishments.

The party is essentially a celebration for the community, as attendees are invited to share their written works, model their fashion designs and even play with virtual reality technology. The event will feature performances from Girls Rock Lab during the Wednesday night Market and will conclude with an open house on Aug. 27.

Adamson-Wood said, “Spark Central’s mission is to ignite the creativity, innovation, and imagination necessary for people to forge the path to their best future.”