Creative Expressions is fortunate to reach many young people because of our abiltity to reach beyond the limitations of discriminations and other negative influences.
Building Assets in Youth Goal of CEC
September 2005
By Gina Oldenburg, Executive Director
In 1989, Creative Expressions was created to help motivate young people to stay off drugs and live healthier lifestyles. The message went out to kids throughout the metro area through performances in malls and school gymnasiums. The message as clearly addressing prevention—reaching as many youth was possible to “Just Say No.”
Today, the message is about saying “yes” to developing assets like a positive identity, healthy relationships, a commitment to learning, and caring. As a youth development program, Creative Expressions often hears statements like “these kids don’t look troubled,” or “they don’t seem to be at risk.” What does an at risk person look like?
Here at Creative Expressions, our job is to offer young people opportunities to explore their talents, creativity, culture and relationships in an environment that supports healthy attitudes, positive reinforcement, and is a safe haven to make mistakes while learning how to cope with and overcome some of life’s challenges.
We serve youth from the metro area who want to get involved in something different, something they can’t find anywhere else. These kids come from different backgrounds, but the one thing they have in common is they are all living in an ever-changing society that can be confusing and overwhelming.
When an audience first sees our young participants on stage doing their best, looking their best and performing their hearts out, they are not supposed to see “troubled youth.” The young people have worked hard to be where they are and have earned the right to feel proud of their accomplishments and who they are now.
Several years ago, at a reception to introduce one of our programs and to introduce some of Creative Expressions’ young performers, I asked a young woman who has been with the program for over seven years if I could introduce her and tell the audience about her past which was filled with many risk factors. She looked at me with sad eyes as to say, “When can I move on, and stop using my past to instill pity and to raise funds?”
For the first time since this young woman came into our program, I felt I could not use her as a statistic. She deserved to be introduced as someone who is proud of who she is today. Every young person deserves to be looked at “with promise,” and not have to wear their lives on their sleeves to feel “deserving.”
Of course, we love to share our successes—the warm fuzzy stories of youth who continue to overcome challenges, and we even find it necessary, at times, to share our frustrations so that others may learn from our endeavors.
Creative Expressions is about building assets in as many of our youth as possible. When you see a young person on our stage or at any of our outreach programs in the schools or in other public performances, we hope you can see them free of trouble, and free of “being at risk,” because that’s what Creative Expressions Center is all about: bringing out the best in the children of our community.
It is vital to the success of Creative Expressions to continue securing resources for our programs. To do what we do does take a financial commitment and we will continue to seek out foundation support, after school, and arts grants, and corporate and individual donors who are committed to providing opportunities for youth to reach their full potential.
Creative Expressions needs the support of the community to help us provide services which we know helps create healthier lives.
Please help us to build assets in our young people.