Former Gateway City Arts Property Opening as Creators Campus for Teens

HOLYOKE — Two years after LightWorks Collective took ownership of the former Gateway City Arts property, the organization is opening the campus more broadly to young people across the region through Creators Campus Holyoke, a summer program built around real tools, real venues, real skills, and real audiences.

The program invites teens ages 13-19 into the working spaces of the LightWorks campus, including the De la Luz Soundstage, Divine Theater, commercial kitchen, studios, classrooms, and maker spaces. Instead of simulated projects or traditional summer camp activities, students will use professional equipment and public-facing spaces to make, perform, cook, print, record, design, and build.

Youth musicians will not just rehearse in a classroom; they will play on a real stage with real sound and lights. Students in the culinary programs will work in a real commercial kitchen, earn their Serv-Safe credential, and prepare and sell food at a real event. Students in visual arts and design will create work that can be exhibited, sold, worn, or shared. Students exploring music, media, glass, AI, screenprinting, and making will have access to the kinds of spaces and tools usually reserved for adult professionals.

“This campus was built for creativity, performance, food, gathering, and community,” said Catherine Gobron, executive director of LightWorks Collective. “Creators Campus is one way we are making sure young people are not just consumers. They are using the tools, making the work, serving the food, running the sound, stepping onto the stage, and learning what it feels like to be taken seriously.”

Creators Campus builds on more than a decade of project-based education at LightHouse Holyoke, the relationship-driven middle and high school operated by LightWorks Collective. The summer program expands that approach beyond enrolled LightHouse students and opens the campus to youth from surrounding communities.

The program runs from June 22 through Aug. 14, with half-day and full-day offerings in arts, making, culinary, media, music, creative technology, and performance. Current and upcoming programs include Fire and Ice: Glass Lampwork, Ghost in the Feed, I Am Not a Robot, Screenprinting, Vinyl DJ Lab, culinary arts, studio arts, and more.

In addition to daytime programs, Creators Campus will host the Drop every Thursday night throughout the summer, a free, all-ages community gathering featuring youth projects, live music, food, galleries, games, and public showcases of student work.

For LightWorks Collective, the launch of Creators Campus is also part of a larger effort to reimagine what the former Gateway City Arts site can be in its next chapter: a working creative and community hub where education, performance, food, art, workforce development, and public life are connected rather than separated.

“Gateway City Arts meant a lot to this community,” Gobron said. “We feel a real responsibility to honor that history while building something new. Our vision is for this campus to remain alive, public, creative, and useful — and to make sure young people have a central place in that future.”

Students do not need to be enrolled at LightHouse Holyoke to participate. Creators Campus is open to young people from any town or community. Scholarships are available. Families can learn more and register at creatorscampus.org.