There has been so much hand-wringing in Pittsburgh over how to keep its young people from leaving that the town could have calluses.

The city is littered with carcasses of old youth-retention drives, from Downtown keg parties to Silicon Valley billboards to "Border Guard Bob," a fictional cop who stops young Pittsburghers from crossing the Western Pennsylvania border. This spring Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, in a chillingly old-fashioned move, named a 35-member commission to further study the matter.

There is hope yet that Pittsburgh's art world -- an inherently more youthful thing -- can do its bit to stem the tide. The latest example is an interesting new collaboration between the 63-year-old National Society of Arts and Letters and one of the city's hippest art galleries, La Vie Gallery in Lawrenceville.

The society's mission is to support and promote young artists, largely through financial awards issued at local and national competitions. Though it has existed since 1944 and assisted some well-known Pittsburgh-area artists and performers -- 2004 award-winner and CMU grad Megan Hilty starred in Broadway's "Wicked" -- it has a low profile among the city's cutting-edge art community.

Enter the human whirlwind that is Thommy Conroy.

Conroy, 27, won the society's 2007 award (in visual art) and runs La Vie, at 3609 Butler St., with owner Bronwyn Loughren, 26. He is also the enfant terrible of the Pittsburgh party scene, designing the Sprout Fund's "Hothouse" parties in East Liberty the past three years.

Conroy said he had never heard of the Arts and Letters society before entering its competition and neither had his art-world pals. He was therefore surprised to learn its mission was pretty much the same as his gallery's.

"The NSAL is great at what they do, at their mission of helping young artists," he said, "but there needs to be a greater connection to emerging artists of Pittsburgh, which is what our shop is connected to."

Collaborating with the society, said Loughren, "furthers what we believe in and want our store to do -- support local artists and make it so they stay in Pittsburgh, and show that the arts community does something for its artists."

So Conroy and Loughren volunteered to help run the society's annual benefit and auction Sept. 15, with plans to infuse the auction with works from up-and-coming Pittsburgh visual artists.

It is part of broader aspirations of spreading the gospel of the Arts and Letters society among the Lawrenceville art crowd, urging them to work with the society's all-volunteer board and to get the society's old-guard supporters to pick up more locally produced art.

"Just having some young people in our group -- it is a shot in the arm, it really is," said Bette Evans, 81, the society's local president. "They're where we were, I hate to say, a long time ago," she said with a laugh.

Added retired art teacher Norm Brown, who at age 63 said he is the youngest member of the society's board, "They're making us really look at what our goals are -- helping young artists when they really need it the most."

There are 23 National Society of Arts and Letters chapters around the United States, each supporting young artists (typically ages 16 through 27) in their communities. Each year, the local chapter issues awards of $3,000, $1,500 and $750 in art, dance, drama, literature, music and musical theater. (They are issued on a revolving basis: this year was for art and last year was dance.) Local winners vie for a $10,000 national prize.

The society regularly helps out the young artists with scholarships and grants to further their training. A nonprofit run completely by volunteers such as Evans and Brown, it depends on fund-raisers like the September event at Oakland's Concordia Club to support its mission. The 2007 awards were underwritten by the Harry Wallace Kamin and Dorothy McNally Kamin Fund of The Pittsburgh Foundation.

Evans has previously volunteered for the boards of Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Civic Light Opera and Mendelssohn Choir, among many other charities. She praised the efforts of the society's longtime volunteers, but said they welcomed some young blood, too.

"We've been around since around 1944, and a lot of our members have been there from the very beginning. We're a very -- what would I say -- seasoned group," she said.

Meanwhile, Conroy and Loughren have run La Vie only since November but have their seventh show starting Saturday. The gallery typically features such local painters as Josh Bonnett and Brillobox owners Renee Ickes and Eric Stern, and in April hosted a show curated by Heather Pesanti, Carnegie Museum of Art's assistant curator of contemporary art.

As is typical, Conroy, a Carnegie Mellon fine arts graduate, has grandiose plans for the National Society of Arts and Letters beyond next month's event -- and for the nexus of art and youthful Pittsburgh.

"Getting young professionals to be members. Giving money. Becoming aware of all these people it benefits," he said, ticking off his goals. "The list of people it assists is so impressive, but it's such a secret organization that nobody knows."

For more information on the National Society of Arts and Letters, call Bette Evans at 412-963-8683 or visit www.artsnet.org/nsal.

La Vie holds its Midsummer Night party with live music and local art at 7 p.m. Saturday. Call 412-253-7365 or go to http://laviepittsburgh.com/ for details.