Women of Color in the Arts Celebrates the 2025 and 2026 Sabbatical Fund Cohorts.
2026 Sabbatical Fund Grantees
WOCA is honored to welcome the 2026 Sabbatical Fund cohort:
Natalia “Nati” Linares
Quita Sullivan
Teresa Coleman Wash
Over the six-month sabbatical period, recipients will participate in wellness assessments, coaching support, cohort gatherings, restorative retreat experiences, and reflection practices designed to support healing, sustainability, and renewed relationships to labor and care. Their experiences will help inform WOCA's ongoing work in community care, public education, and archival documentation.
We look forward to witnessing what rest and renewal will make possible for each of you. You deserve this.
Gratitude for our Reviewers
WOCA extends deep gratitude to the 2026 panelists and community reviewers whose care and discernment supported this year's selection process:
Tahnia Belle
Racquel Welch Perez
Dr. Sheena Gutierrez
Their participation reflects WOCA's commitment to values-based review, community accountability, and storytelling practices grounded in consent, dignity, and care. To each of them: your service is seen, valued, and deeply appreciated.
WOCA celebrates this cohort and the community that continues to make this work possible.
Women of Color in the Arts (WOCA) is proud to announce the 2025 and 2026 recipients of the WOCA Sabbatical Fund, a restorative initiative created to support women of color in the arts with protected time, financial support, wellness-centered care, and community-rooted restoration.
The Sabbatical Fund was created in recognition of the emotional, cultural, intellectual, and organizational labor women of color carry across the arts ecosystem. Rooted in WOCA's belief that rest is essential to sustainability, the fund gives recipients space to step away from paid labor and focus on wellness, creative renewal, reflection, and personal restoration.
Since its pilot launch, the Sabbatical Fund has continued to grow as a care-centered model shaped by community, trust, and the lived experiences of its participants. With their permission, WOCA may share cohort stories, quotes, images, and reflections through communications, reports, and archival storytelling that document the impact and growth of the fund.
2025 Sabbatical Fund Grantees
WOCA proudly recognizes the inaugural 2025 Sabbatical Fund grantees:
Shaunda McDill
Viviana Benitez
Stephanie McKee