2025 Application

Applications Open 

$18.67/HR

Youth Application

Spotlight on the Arts (Spotlight) is a program of California Lawyers for the Arts (CLA) that provides multidisciplinary arts workforce development training for youth.

• Worksites have an intern placed at their site and are paid by CLA
  

• Seven Week summer program.  

• Youth must be 14-17, have an interest in the arts, live in San Francisco, and be low-income according to San Francisco Public Housing Eligibility Standards. We do targeted outreach to youth with high needs - those with disabilities, LGBTQ, and in the foster care system as well as Black, Latinx and Pacific Islander youth.

• CLA pays youth a wage of $18.67 per hour 

• In the summer, participants work 16 hours per week at their assigned site.

About us

Since 1993 California Lawyers for the Arts has proudly sponsored Spotlight on the Arts, a comprehensive multidisciplinary arts workforce development program for low-income high school students ages 14 to 17. Since inception, we have provided job training and career exploration to more than 900 students. Spotlight employs a three pronged approach that includes internships or apprenticeships, workshops and college counseling.

Summer Program

Internships

Through internship site placements that reflect their interests and skills, participants get “hands on” job training and explore careers in diverse arts disciplines. More than 80 Internship sites have included 826 Valencia, African American Art and Culture Complex, A.C.T. Costume Rentals Shop,  Chinese Culture Center, Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, Musical Theater Works, Project Level, Root Division, Southern Exposure, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and Youth Art Exchange.

Workshops 

Complementing their internships, Spotlight participants attend workshops that include “backstage” tours of art facilities, presentations from veterans in the industry, and interactive exercises in conflict resolution, workplace etiquette, interview skills, public speaking, civic advocacy, financial literacy, college application processes and expressive arts. Pictured below are youth exploring identity and emotions through a visual arts project

College Counseling

Individual meetings with a college counselor provide participants with the opportunity to explore personally tailored career and higher education pathways. Given the lack college counselors to students in our public schools, this program feature has proven to be highly valuable to our participants

Gallery