The LA Arts Community Fire Relief Fund will accept applications from Monday, January 20, at 9:00 a.m. PST to Tuesday, February 18, 2025, at 5 p.m. PST. 
 
Learn more at www.cciarts.org/relief
Unfettering Artists' Productivity and Impact
images/Jessica Mele

Jessica Mele

Jessica Mele is a writer, educator, grantmaker, mother, and performer based in California whose work lives at the intersection of labor, education, creativity, and philanthropy. For eight years, she was a Program Officer in the Performing Arts Program at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation where she made the first grant to CCI's Research to Impact Lab and funded the Arts Workers in California paper. Jessica is a thought leader in arts education in California, a founding executive committee member of Teaching Artists Guild and most recently served as the interim executive director of Create CA. Jessica has also written, performed, and produced sketch comedy for over a decade as a member of San Francisco’s female-driven sketch comedy group, Chardonnay. Her solo play about motherhood and interstellar space, “Eat the Mama,” premiered in San Francisco in September 2023. 

Jessica has an M.Ed. in Education, Policy, and Management from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a B.A. in Anthropology and French Studies from Smith College (Northampton, MA).