In 2023, Anna Montana had been looking for a third place, a space for social interaction outside of work and home. She was working a part-time job and had found herself bored. That’s when a friend introduced Montana to The Loop Lab, a media arts nonprofit that started in Cambridge but has since expanded to Boston and beyond.

Montana had always been interested in the media arts, and The Loop Lab’s offerings aligned perfectly with her interests. So, she applied to one of the organization’s programs. During a six-month apprenticeship from June to December 2023, Montana learned about lighting, video production and photography.

The softer skills she acquired, such as “team leadership” and “community strength,” were equally as valuable, she said.

“I feel like there’s always been a lack of spaces like that for people of color,” said Montana, 23.

“Especially growing up, I noticed a lot of people of color don’t have these spaces, so they essentially fall under the wrong things, and they don’t have anywhere to kind of exert their creative energy.”

When he founded The Loop Lab in 2017, Christopher Hope’s goal was to give young adults from underestimated — not underrepresented, he distinguished — backgrounds access to career advancement and digital storytelling opportunities. Now the organization is focused on growth, said Hope, its founder and a professor at Boston University.

On Oct. 18 at the Yawkey Theater, The Loop Lab will hold its inaugural Loop Dreams gala where the organization will celebrate student projects and honor Cambridge Rep. Marjorie Decker for her support. The gala is an opportunity for the organization to expand its offerings and continue its mission, Hope said.

“When I look at a lot of Black and brown communities and other kinds of communities that are highly underestimated, I often see [that] those stories about their communities and our communities are often told by people not from our communities,” he said. “And that, to me, is a challenge, because there’s a lot that’s lost in translation culturally as well as maybe even literally.”

Instead, he said he believes it’s important to teach people to tell their own stories using media technology. The Loop Lab’s primary offering is its media arts apprenticeship program for 18 to 30-year-olds from Greater Boston who “identify with an underestimated population,” Hope said, meaning they might come from a low-income community, have a disability, or be a minority — all identities that are underrepresented in the media arts.

“It’s really about envisioning what the possibilities are for our young people in … the city of Boston,” he said. “What are our dreams for the possibilities that could exist for the youth, for media and media entertainment?”

Through a rigorous admissions process, The Loop Lab admits about 10 students to its program each year who learn the ins and outs of audio production, video production and filmmaking. The organization eliminated barriers to entry, Hope said, by giving students transport passes, partnering with organizations to ensure food security and counseling services and paying students starting at $17.50 per hour.

After students complete the program, they are set up with six months of an internship where they get hands-on training in an industry of their choosing.

Students have landed internships at radio stations and local film and recording studios, theatres and universities.

Beyond teaching the tools of media arts, The Loop Lab focuses on preparing its participants to enter the workforce. The organization partners with financial institutions to teach students financial literacy, entrepreneurship and contracting.

Past participants of The Loop Lab can “work in pretty much any major environment professionally as you have those concrete skills of not just the production piece and the technical piece, but also the customer service and the soft skills needed to really be successful in the 21st-century workforce,” Hope said.

For Montana, having a “safe space” like The Loop Lab allowed her to be herself and uncover her capabilities, she said. Where she normally was one to take a step back in group settings, in The Loop Lab, she found herself taking on leadership roles.

“In any other job outside of The Loop Lab, I don’t think I’ve ever felt the need to want to take the lead and to want to participate in things. I think they kind of opened that door for me to take those steps on my own,” she said. “It didn’t feel forced. It felt like I could take the initiative to continue doing this awesome and amazing work.

Dorchester native Abraham Lopez, 28, who also participated in The Loop Lab’s apprenticeship program in 2022, said the value he got from it was “endless.”

“I’ve gotten jobs, I’ve gotten … knowledge and opportunities. It’s so much that it gives, it’s incredible, even in areas that I didn’t see happening,” he said.

When he first learned about the program, he didn’t have a formal college education and thought The Loop Lab could serve as a good launching pad for a career in the media arts. During his time there, he was able to explore his interest in fashion by creating promotional merchandise for The Loop Lab.

Lopez called the program a “pathfinder” that helps participants unearth areas of interest they might not have previously considered.

“Going through the program, [you] can align yourself with whatever it is that you feel for you or best fits for you, whether it is media arts, whether it is entrepreneurship, whether it is retail work, whether it is any kind of corporate work or anything like that,” he said. “You’re going to have those keys and those lessons and skills that you kind of learned from a program like this that you can take into real life.”