Jennifer Gastelum

Jennifer’s degrees in Psychology and Community Counseling serve her well in her role as Community Engagement Specialist at Mesa Arts Center. Previously, Jennifer worked at Neighborhood Economic Development Corporation (NEDCO) researching and exploring the effective use of art as a community and economic development tool in Downtown Mesa and on Apache Boulevard in Tempe.

For the past six years, Jennifer has worked with other community partners to implement programs such as Mesa Up @ Nite, the Ripple Grant Program, Apache Eats Restaurant Crawl, Easy Like Saturday Morning and Mimosas & Palomas Art Brunches, the Well Fed Artist Workshop Series, the CC Gallery Project, Wordplay Café, Hack the MAC, and, most recently, The Collective Creative Leadership program. Each month, Jennifer leads a monthly committee of community members to make decisions about existing programming and to work together to identify and implement new programming opportunities that will have the biggest impact on the surrounding neighbors and businesses. Jennifer has served as coordinator for the Mesa Prototyping Project, and has acted as curator and coordinator for the Spark at Dark third Saturday event at Mesa Arts Center.

She is an advocate for community-based practice and using art as a tool for economic and community connection, spreading this message by serving on panels, presenting at conferences, and co-hosting a monthly podcast about creative origin stories. As a local resident and a Mesa native, Jennifer is driven by her passion for community and the arts, and the value of bringing the two together to make positive change.