Candelaria Silva-Collins connects arts and culture to community and community to arts and culture.
Candelaria currently coordinates the Community Membership Program of the Huntington Theatre Company and is Program Manager for the Fellowes Athenaeum Trust Fund of the Boston Public Library. She also serves as a coach for the Creative Entrepreneur Fellowship of the Arts and Business Council of Greater Boston. Another recent project was Door2Door to the Arts initiative for SCM Community Transportation, where she curated arts and cultural outings for senior citizens.
Candelaria was director of the award-winning cultural-economic development program, Arts, Culture and Traduce Roxbury (ACT Roxbury), a department of Madison Park Development Corporation. As the first director of ACT Roxbury (1998 until 2007), she conceived, planned and raised funds for its signature programs including Roxbury Film Festival, Roxbury Open Studios, Roxbury Literary Annual, Roxbury in Motion (playwright mentorship), the Roxbury Literary Annual (two adult and four youth editions), and the Roxbury is Rich Holiday Shopping Guides. She provided leadership in the creation of Roxbury Center for Arts at Hibernian Hall. Her work was profiled in several publications, including The Creative Communities Builders Handbook.
Candelaria’s essays, children’s stories, short stories, and reviews have been published in local and national publications and she is an active blogger. She is currently Chair, Designators of the George B. Henderson Foundation and serves on the boards of Dunamis Boston and Write on the Dot. Previously, she served on the boards of Goddard College, Wheelock Family Theatre, Boston Foundation for Architecture, and Discover Roxbury.