For the young people of the San Francisco Bay Area, the Arts and Community Development Project of the California Lawyers for the Arts (CLA) provides an avenue to summer employment in the arts as well as multicultural after-school instruction in visual, literary and performing arts. Working in partnership with the San Francisco Unified School District and the Private Industry Council, a nonprofit organization that administers federal Job Training Partnership Act funds, CLA finds employment in local arts and cultural institutions for youth city-wide. Teens in the program work 20 hours a week for 8 weeks at minimum wage. CLA meets with teens one-on-one and matches them with an appropriate site. Once the young people go to work, CLA coordinates enrichment seminars that focus on life skills such as conflict resolution, peer counseling, communication and job readiness. Additionally, CLA incorporates sessions on careers in the arts, some hands-on sessions on the creation of artworks and backstage visits with professionals of major arts institutions; a mentoring program is part of the career development experience available to youth. The after-school instructional program is offered in collaboration with eight nonprofit multicultural arts providers. The collaborative Project fosters the self-esteem, personal identities and cross-cultural exchanges among children and teens from different communities by teaching and sharing art forms. Older youth in this collaborative Project also develop marketable employment skills appropriate to the arts and other fields.