When life slips into survival mode, the first things we tend to abandon are the ones that bring light: creativity, play, moments of beauty that feel expendable in the rush to get through the day. And yet, those are often the very things we need most. As author and preacher Hal Lindsey once observed, a person can survive days without food or water—even minutes without air—but no more than one second without hope.
Across Birmingham, InToto Creative Arts has watched that hope take shape in unexpected rooms and borrowed spaces—through paint and paper, through music drifting down a hallway, through bodies learning to move freely again. The organization brings visual art, music, movement, and improvisation classes into some of the city’s most vulnerable and overlooked communities.
“During each session, we see people start to connect with parts of themselves that have been buried under the stress of what they’re going through,” says Executive Director Dani Parmar. “You see them start to light up again, and it’s a beautiful thing to witness.”
Parmar joined InToto in 2021 after working as a teaching artist in other community-based programs. The organization was started in 2020 by Kyle Tyree, a Firehouse Shelter volunteer who saw the need for creative outlets for people going through struggles and trauma. “I’ve never worked anywhere that makes such an instant impact,” Parmar says. “You see the results of your work so clearly, so quickly. I completely fell in love with the mission.”
InToto doesn’t operate from a central studio. Instead, the team goes to where people already are—Firehouse Shelter, Pathways Home, the 1920 Club, Faith Chapel Care Center, the Birmingham VA—meeting participants within systems they already navigate each day. When the team arrives, they invite everyone to participate, then eagerly wait to see who shows up.
Some days it’s a familiar group. Many days, it’s filled with new faces. What unfolds is intentionally open-ended: a movement class, a songwriting session, a table scattered with brushes and paint. “All of these art forms give us a way to process what we’re going through and a way to express ourselves beyond words,” Parmar says. “Words can be very difficult. We hold so much stress and trauma in our bodies. Reconnecting with our bodies helps us move through that and build confidence.”
What happens in those rooms is rooted in permission—permission to pause, to play, and to be vulnerable together. “These classes give people the chance to check out of survival mode for a few minutes,” Parmar says. “They get a chance to rest, to de-stress, and to be joyful together.”
That sense of permission carries across every discipline InToto offers. In improv theater classes led by one of the team’s volunteer instructors, performer Chris Davis, laughter often comes first—but confidence follows close behind. “I’m always pleasantly surprised by how our participants take to what I’m teaching,” Davis says. “I tell them it’s not about perfection—it’s about interpretation. That usually puts people at ease. It makes the whole experience more fun.”
And sometimes, that openness becomes a doorway.
That was the case for Eugene.
For a long time, he declined the invitations. Then one afternoon at Firehouse Shelter, music floated down the hall. Eugene followed the sound. “I play guitar,” he told Parmar. He returned to the next class not only with an instrument, but with an original song—one he said had been carried in his heart for more than 20 years.
When Eugene shared “Humanity Song,” first in class and later at InToto’s community book release, the room seemed to move as one. The song—about collaboration, dignity, and hope—left little distance between performer and audience.
A portion of the lyrics reads:
Humanity was meant to be like
one big team, on a great crusade
to achieve God’s dream.
But an adverse mind
made us doubt God’s plan,
and that’s what we call
the downfall of man.
But when we fall,
it doesn’t have to mean we fail.
We can get back up,
go on, and still do well.
Tears came easily. “This song had been in his heart for decades,” Parmar says. “He just needed the platform to share it.”
Today, Eugene is a regular presence at InToto, even leading music sessions of his own. His story is one of many unfolding each week through IntToto’s growing network of partnerships, where creativity becomes a bridge back to self and back to community.
This year alone, InToto Creative Arts served more than 700 participants through 12 weekly classes, collectively attended more than 4,000 times. Still, Parmar sees the work as essential, not supplemental.
“We really want people to start viewing community arts as an essential part of the social services landscape,” Parmar says. “People need food and shelter. But more than that, they need to be part of a community. They need hope.”
At its core, InToto is built on a simple belief: people are not lesser because they are going through something difficult. Their voices and their creativity matter.
“You just have to come to one class to see it,” Parmar says. “We’re all just human beings, trying to find our way.”
In addition to being funded by donations, InToto Creative Arts hosts art sales that provide much-needed income for the artists. Artwork is available at their annual “Our Voices” showcase, at various pop-ups and events, on their website, and by commission. Learn more at intotocreativearts.org
“People need food and shelter. But more than that, they need to be part of a community. They need hope.”