We ought to unfold the jubilant, lively and colorful spirit within us. In painting or doing other things, we should bring vitality and happiness to this world.

Greetings, lovely viewers, and welcome to Good People, Good Works. This week’s show features Art Share Los Angeles, a wonderful non-profit organization located in the Arts District of Los Angeles, California, USA. Art Share operates a community-based arts learning center whose goals are to change lives among the area’s underprivileged and provide a safe shelter and workplace where both emerging and established local artists can exhibit and perform.

My name is Rocio Diaz. I am sixteen years old, about to turn seventeen.

I love Art Share because it creates the person I am today. Without Art Share I wouldn’t be the person I am today.

Art Share’s two-story, nearly 3,000-square-meter facility features a visual and ceramic arts studio with kiln on the ground floor, an extended art gallery, a 450-person capacity space for dance and theater performances and an administrative area. The building’s second story contains 30 low-rent lofts to support and house artists who qualify for government housing assistance based on income.

Art Share is a community center, it’s an art incubator, and what we do is we provide free art classes for low-income teens, anything from painting, to hip-hop dance, ballet, jazz, spoken word, film classes, graffiti art, and mosaics. And we recently have a recording studio, so we are teaching kids how to record their own music.

The main programs offered by Art Share include “BLAST” or Building Language and Art Skills Together, where professional artists hold free classes to teach at-risk and disadvantaged youth; “FACT” or Families and Communities Together, a supportive service that helps reconnect youths and parents; and the Community Artists Exhibitions Program, a platform for artists to present month-long solo and group shows.

Attracted by its reputation and benevolent work, talented artists and visionaries from all walks of life gather at Art Share and use their skills to make constructive contributions to society. Working as Art Share’s program director for more than eight years, and executive director for three, the farsighted Tracy Kelly continues to make invaluable contributions to Art Share, including pioneering the “BLAST” program.

I came to Art Share actually looking for space to create a diversity training program for teenagers. I thought that art was a really good way to bring people together. And it has been a very good way. But when I got here, I had about a hundred students that didn’t speak English. So what we created was a program where they got two hours worth of English classes and two hours worth of art classes to help them learn English. So that’s how we got started.

And then I incorporated that into dance, into film, vocal classes, theater classes, and we incorporate it in all the classes now; there’s always an English language learning component to all the classes.

The Families and Communities Together program is directed by Ricardo Perez, a passionate artist who uses his talents to encourage youth to rediscover themselves through art, bring them closer to their families and better understand one another.

The FACT program is the six-month program that is family based. So we invite youth that are referred from their school, because they’re having problems at school, and we invite the families to participate in the program because it’s shown that usually when children are having difficulties at school, it’s because most likely something’s going on at home, and so we invite the parents and the youth, so together they can build on better improving their communication skills at home.

Art Share’s enjoyable, innovative programs have won the hearts of the local students who come and spend their after-school hours in and around the facility, where they can meet like-minded friends and learn and do what they’re interested in.

I was a part of “spoken word” performance, three dance classes, a 3D paper mache class and a painting class. So I decided to take on everything I can, and through each and every class I’ve learned so much. I’ve learned so many aspects in art that if you want a painting to be really tangible, you have to think about every single detail there is in like, the human face.

Dance just taught me to be very disciplined with myself. If I want something I better go for it and I can’t hold back. It actually opened up my eyes to a big possible range of professions in the dance industry; there are so many things I can go to, and it’s overwhelming.

Spoken word poetry, it’s taught me to actually open up and it made me realize that my voice is important. There are lots and lots of young adults and teens that feel that their voice isn’t worth anything and I just believe that isn’t true. So in a lot of my poetry I talk about we have to speak, we have to be heard, because if not, things are just going to keep on going the way they are.

So ‘Art Share L.A.’ has really helped me become a better person. It’s teaching me to be more professional and I’m ready to take on some other responsibilities a grown person should.

If I was to be able to teach here (at Art Share), it would set an example for kids. I also stood in here once too, and I’m a teacher now. So it shows progress. And I would just love to get Art Share out there. There are too many non-profit organizations that just go unheard of. So I want to be able to push Art Share out there along with other ones, so teens can actually have a place to go and, open up their mind.

When we return, we’ll learn more about Art Share and how the arts bring a new dimension to students’ lives. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television.

My name is Enrique Lopez and I’m eighteen. I love Art Share because Art Share made me love art, and it’s just brought a lot of things to me. It brought dance, and I was able to do my solo and show it to people. And I love Art Share because it’s like my second family.

Welcome back to Good People, Good Works. We are visiting Art Share, an innovative non-profit organization in Los Angeles, USA which uses the arts to improve the lives of at-risk youth and provides family counseling services as well as subsidized housing for low-income local artists. Youth that participate in Art Share’s programs perform better in school and have more definite plans for the future.

We actually have a 92% graduation rate from the students in our program, that graduate from high school, and about 70% of those students typically go on to college. So I think what we’re doing, especially now in a time where we recognize that a lot of the arts programs are cut from high schools, we’re really filling that gap and providing a very much needed service, where students oftentimes can actually see and understand the outlets that their artistic talent can lead to in a professional capacity.

Hi, I’m Tessa Elbettar, and this is my piece, if you can see it. My parents are both born in Iraq. I was born here (USA). For me art is just a big part of my life and I attended art high school. Every day I’m doing art, so I think that’s the best way, for me especially, to express yourself and I think that this gallery was a great opportunity to bring my roots into art which is the thing that I do best.

I think it’s just a great program, and it’s such a great way for kids to present their art to the public. It’s just a great program because it gives us an opportunity that we would never normally have to present ourselves, so I really appreciate everything that they (Art Share) did so far.

Art Share’s work has gained the recognition of Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard of the US House of Representatives who stated that Art Share’s programs “are responsive to the community’s needs (by) empowering individuals and families through artistic development.” Executive director Tracy Kelly now takes us on a tour of this inspirational place of learning.

Welcome to Art Share. This is command central. This is the center where everything happens. We have finance here, this is where the kids come in and hang out and get their initial hugs and talk to the staff. And then Danyol Jaye over here makes things happen.

This painting: “The Graduate,” which is one of Art Share’s goals, to make sure all the teens that come to this center graduate high school, was done by an artist named Dan Wooster, one of the first professional artists that got involved in Art Share in the year 2000.

This is our art classroom. In here there are ceramics classes, mosaics classes, painting, and graffiti arts. Today is Friday so if we weren’t doing our performance today, we would have graffiti arts class and papier-mâché class today. Here, as you see, there’s another Wooster, and you can see how the students have been working on their last minute touches for their paintings, which are now hung in the gallery.

This is our hall gallery. This is another professional artist that showed his work here three months ago. And it was a very inspirational art exhibit. We can make art out of anything. So here you are, a graffiti arts chair. Then we’ll come back here to our library, where we collect books for students to use for book reports or just general reading. We call it the Lesley Gilb Taplin Library.

Lesley was a big supporter of Art Share, she collected books and made sure that students always had books to read, whether homeless, low income, or underprivileged. This theatre is where we do dance classes, hip hop, jazz, salsa, karate classes, vocal classes and acting classes, to say the least.

As you can see, we have all the student artwork hanging in the gallery, they’ve been working on it for six months and the theme, as you know, is: “It takes a village, communities working together.” And we think it’s really, really awesome what they’ve come up with.

Wow! What a lovely place for young artists to foster their innate creativity and exchange ideas! Our heartfelt thanks go to all the dedicated staff of Art Share and its volunteers for their loving guidance and support in empowering youth to achieve their life’s dreams.

Art Share has really brought a lot of opportunities here. I just want to thank them. They’re so helpful.

For more details on Art Share, please visit ArtShareLA.org

Cheerful viewers, we enjoyed your presence today on Good People, Good Works. Join us again next Sunday for the second and final part of our visit to Art Share Los Angeles. May your spirits be lifted by heavenly inspiration.

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Learn more about these loving canines on “Greyhound Rescue: Friends of the Hound in Australia - Parts 1 and 2” airing Thursday and Friday, June 10 and 11, on Animal World: Our Co-Inhabitants.