Hollister-based JMM Dance Co., a nonprofit that uses dance and movement to support mental health and social-emotional growth, was recently awarded a grant that will help bring a free series of community gatherings to South Valley.
JMM was awarded a $5,000 Connecting California grant from California Humanities—one of only eight such grants provided statewide, the nonprofit said in a statement. JMM Dance was the only recipient in San Benito County.
“There is always a place to say what is hard,” said Veronica Vásquez Garcia, founder and executive director of JMM Dance Co. “But we did not want to build rooms where people only complain. We wanted to build rooms where people leave with something—an idea, a next step, a neighbor they did not know before. That is the difference we are after.”
The grant will fund Cafecitos & Comunidad, a free series of community gatherings in Hollister, San Juan Bautista and Gilroy that brings neighbors together over coffee, conversation and movement, JMM staff said. The series is built around the idea that people who live in the same place but rarely share a room have more in common than they might think.
Each gathering will pair guided conversation with movement-based expression, a practice JMM has used for years in schools, libraries and community centers across the region, the nonprofit’s statement said. Participants are invited to reflect on questions such as how their cultural background shapes the way they express emotion, what traditions define who they are and what they share despite their differences.
JMM Dance Co. was founded in honor of Juan C. Vasquez, a mental health therapist. The nonprofit works from the premise that movement can reach what words sometimes cannot—across languages, across generations and across the ordinary distances that separate people in a small community, according to JMM.
“Movement is a language everyone already speaks,” said Vásquez Garcia. “A grandmother and a teenager may not have the same words. They can still move in the same room, at the same time, toward the same thing.”
The series will run through spring 2027 and close with a community presentation where groups share what came out of their conversations through movement, spoken word and other art forms.
All Cafecitos & Comunidad gatherings are free and open to the public, and will be offered in English and Spanish. Families, youth, caregivers and older adults are all welcome. Dates, locations and registration details will be announced at jmmdanceco.org.
California Humanities awarded $40,000 across eight organizations in the latest round of Connecting California, a program that supports community-led work that uses storytelling and the humanities to bridge cultural divides.
Other grantees include projects in Oakland, Petaluma, San Jose, Atascadero, Inland Southern California, Los Angeles and Chico.
“[Connecting California] invests in community-led initiatives that help us see the world through our neighbor’s eyes,” said Rick Noguchi, chief executive officer of California Humanities.
