Leigh Curran founded the Virginia Avenue Project in 1991, and serves as its Artistic Director. The Project is a free after-school program that uses the performing arts along with one-on-one mentoring to help at-risk youth in Santa Monica’s Pico Corridor discover their full potential. Children typically enter the program in the elementary grades, and almost all of them stay with it throughout high school. 100% of Project kids graduate from high school, 90% go on to college, and 85% are the first in their family to do so.