Twelve distinguished American and Arab- American artists across the country entrusted us with their artwork and allowed us to create the first CAC calendar for 2017!
We will sell this calendar as a fundraising project to support the CAC programs and events!
If you would like to have this calendar, please mail a check of $20 (shipping Included) with your address and we will mail the calendar back to you!
Mail your check to Center for Arabic Culture 191 Highland Av. 6B Somerville, MA 02143
With your support we can always be pioneers in spreading Arabic arts and culture as a bridge of love, tolerance, and understanding.
Support CAC Mission! Working Together, We Make A Difference.
Dear CAC Family,
Every day your support makes it possible for CAC to continue to grow and thrive and for its staff and volunteers to focus on improving existing programs and developing new ones that enrich our community’s needs and aspirations. Today we are launching our Year-End Campaign. Money from the campaign will go to helping us reach new goals, like:
Invest in newer programs that will represent, entertain, and bridge our culture and our community with others.
Grow from 16 events per year in 2016 to 20 events in 2017.
Establish the CAC Cultural Club this spring targeting our community members, especially seniors, that offer both social and cultural outings.
Enrich the CAC 4th Annual Arab Cultural Month and Festival this April with attractive activities.
Establish a CAC summer camp that provides children with skills necessary to develop and connect with the culture.
Increase our student count at the Arabic school from 101 in 2016, to 120 in 2017.
Offer our teachers professional development training and strengthen our curriculum.
Allow our choir to grow and perform 5 concerts per year.
We’ve also been working hard to grow and diversify our board with new members, and are very excited to be injecting new ideas and energy in the group. With that, we are very happy to share some of our accomplishments this year 2016:
CAC collaborated for a third semester with the Agha Khan Documentation Center at MIT to showcase 3 unique movies followed by speaker-led discussions.
The CAC 3rd Annual Arab Cultural Month and Festival was the most successful to date with over 240 attendees.
Twelve distinguished Arab American artists across the country entrusted us with their artwork and allowed us to create the first CAC calendar for 2017.
Enrollment in our Arabic cooking classes is at its highest with 50 attendees in 2016.
CAC co-sponsored the “All Strangers are Kin” book event with Harvard Bookstore and the “Boston-Basra” art project with the Fort Point Theater during summer and fall 2016.
Emerging Arab American artists’ work like Kinan Idnawi, Aliya Cycon Project and many others is promoted by CAC’s active electronic weekly newsletter.
Our Arabic children’s choir performed at local schools and organizations like the city of Somerville MLK celebration and the International School of Boston spring festival.
However, without your continuous support, our accomplishments would not have been possible. We believe in our mission and we invite you to continue supporting it by giving generously. You can donate online by clicking the button below, or by mailing back the envelop enclosed with your letter to help ensure that we continue the work and do even more in 2017.
We welcome your ideas, comments and suggestions on what you’d like to see CAC do in 2017, and we’d love also to have you participate in any way you can. Help us grow our beloved center and spread the arts and culture of our community as a bridge of love, tolerance and understanding.
Thank you for your trust, continued support, and friendship.
Randa Shedid, J.D.
President
CAC is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.
“We are very proud and happy to be part of the CAC family, where we made many new friends and rekindle old friendships, while our children learn our language and culture in a wonderful family environment.”
Dr. Assef Zobian and Family
The Center for Arabic Culture (CAC) is a nonprofit organization that promotes Arabic language, culture and the Arab American experience at its best, through its Arabic school at Mt. Ida College in Newton and its Center at the Armory in Somerville.
CAC’s main goal is to build bridges and open exchanges between the Arab-American community and the New England Community at large. CAC is reaching its 10-year mark and its existence is only possible because of generous donors like you, the vision of its founders and current Board, the hardworking staff member, its teachers and the many volunteers.
Why support CAC?
At the CAC Arabic School we pride ourselves in offering a secular education embracing everyone and for all age groups starting from 3 year olds to adults, holding small class sizes.
Our organization succeeded in establishing the first Arab American Children Choir in New England. With 25 members, the choir introduced Arabic music through various concerts in the Greater Boston Area. It sang with the NY Arabic Orchestra at the 2015 annual CAC spring Celebration.
We are becoming a valuableresource to numerous organizations in Massachusetts. The Boston Public Library, the American Cancer Society, the Somerville Office of Commissions and the Aga Khan Documentation center at MIT, to name a few, have all relied on CAC for advice, inquiries, events, and educational resources.
In 2015, CAC featured Arab-American artists, Arabic films, exhibitions, and held cooking classes, Arabic colloquial classes and a fashion show at the Armory in Somerville. It organized and sponsored comedy shows and concerts, as well as talented musicians from Boston together with musicians from New York under the direction of our ardent supporter and musician Bassam Saba.
CAC was able to train and supervise more than 20 interns during 2014 and 2015, the vast majority of whom are of non-Arab descent and interested in learning about the Arabic Culture.
“I started learning Arabic six years ago for work reasons, but I’ve continued my studies (and started my children learning here) because of the warm welcome, support, encouragement, and professionalism of the CAC staff, teachers, and families. We couldn’t ask for a better environment in which to learn about Arabic culture and language!” Mark Naylor, founder of Partner Capital, a company focused on US real estate investing by Middle East clients
We pride ourselves in having created all this programming with onlyone paid staff member and a large team of volunteers. With your support we can continue to bring more content.
Please continue to be generous as our services are unique and are not offered elsewhere in Massachusetts. We aim to offer an intensive summer course for children this summer and we hope to grow our extra-curricular activities for them. Your funding makes our programming for you possible. The school tuition barely pays for the rent and the teachers.
All our contributing donors above $100 will automatically become CAC members and enjoy our membership benefits according to their level of contribution. CAC is a registered 501(c) (3) non-profit organization. Donations are tax-exempt.
Thank You CAC Friends and Donors
for all that you have done
to support the Center for Arabic Culture
Dear Friends,
Our strength as an organization comes from you, our members, participants, donors and volunteers, who make the Center for Arabic Culture (CAC) vibrant and strong! The CAC is grateful for all you do for us throughout the year. Because of you, we have realized extraordinary growth and achievement since 2006….
This year you helped us grow the CAC Sunday School by 20%. We added the extremely popular CAC Children Choir and Arabic Kids Playgroup for younger children, the first of their kind in MA. “Cook with CAC” has been heavily attended, and now we have teamed up with KITCHENiNC in Somerville to make those classes a regular program on the cooking class scene. The center is also becoming a great educational resource for college student interns; in the space of a few months, we have helped train 11 interns and will continue our mentorship and outreach in that arena. And, these are only a few examples of the programs that you enjoy at CAC.
At the CAC, you will receive top-notch services, and you know that you will be treated in a warm and caring manner by dedicated, professional teachers, program facilitators, and staff. We are very proud of the milestones we have achieved, but we also think we can do better, grow even more, and add even more programs.
But, we need your help to do all of this!
Your yearly gift of $100, $250, $500, $1000 or $5,000 can make all the difference for our Arabic Sunday School, for our cultural programming and lectures, for our art exhibits, or any other outreach and programs that we bring to you – and it will also make a big difference to everyone who works to serve you.
You can choose to join our monthly giving program today! You can become a CAC Champion Partner by giving $15, $20, $50, $100 or more every month. The CAC’s monthly giving program allows you to support our mission of bringing the community outstanding services on a recurring basis by way of automatic bank pay or credit card payments. Monthly giving is a convenient, automatic, and easy way to show you care.
Please help us continue our important work so that we can bring you more of what you have come to love and rely on. Without you, our community, we would not be able to continue our work. You give us meaning and a reason to exist! Please consider making as generous a gift as you can.
Your donation will make a world of difference!
On behalf of the Board of Directors and the entire CAC Team, thank you so much for your help and Happy Holidays!
grow the CAC Sunday School by 20%. We added the extremely popular CAC Children Choir and Arabic Kids Playgroup for younger children, the first of their kind in MA. “Cook with CAC” has been heavily attended, and now we have teamed up with KITCHENiNC in Somerville to make those classes a regular program on the cooking class scene. The center is also becoming a great educational resource for college student interns; in the space of a few months, we have helped train 11 interns and will continue our mentorship and outreach in that arena. And, these are only a few examples of the programs that you enjoy at CAC.