Decade-long vision for innovative community arts center realized in East Palo Alto
In East Palo Alto, a new building with the word "EPACENTER" will catch your eye. It's beautiful, and on the inside, it's filled with innovation and opportunity.
EPACENTER is an organization that has been providing classes for the youth of East Palo Alto for years, but in a smaller space. Now, they have a new building with classes that involve art, dance, theater, acting, film, animation, music production, audio engineering, cooking, and even skateboarding. The list goes on.
In each of these classes lies opportunity. But it wasn't easy getting to this point. This center was about a decade in the making.
Students and parents of East Palo Alto were involved, including Keitlan Wallace.
She is a former student of EPACENTER. She grew up attending schools in East Palo Alto and she started taking dance class with EPACENTER when she was in high school -- when they were in a much smaller space.
"We started off on a stage outside in a park," Wallace said.
Now, she listens and talks with young students about what they'd like to see at the center. When she walks into the building, she gravitates to the dance studio located inside.
"Where it's just me and my reflection and I get to express myself," she said.
That's a feeling Wallace hopes every student here finds.
"This program in general helped me embrace my culture, my Latina," she said. "Made me more confident being in my own skin color."
To make this new center happen, the question was "What did the youth of East Palo Alto want to see?"
Wallace along with many other students was part of answering that. One thing they asked for was a theater. They now have that. When she first walked in, she said she cried. It was hard to believe that it had finally happened.
"We finally have a theater to show people our talent. We have a floor we can stand on. We have space," she said.
"I feel like it's a miracle," said EPACENTER Executive Director Nadine Rambeau.
Rambeau said about 150 students were involved in about a 10-year period from conceptualizing the project to envisioning, to working with an architect. They serve 6 to 25-year-olds. And it's free.
This was also made possible through the John and Marcia Goldman Foundation. In a statement, they said their foundation decided to listen to the young people they hoped to serve.
"The result was a s place that they would have as their own, a place where they could express, emote, learn, and thrive," John and Marcia Goldman said in the statement. "We are truly proud that what was a dream for EPA's young people over a decade ago is now a beautiful, vibrant reality, for them and for generations to come."
Indeed, it's a dream that many students hoped would come true. Rambeau said it's not just about the classes. It's about building that sense of self worth.
"They can do anything that they have the ability to conceive of it, imagine it, make it come to life, that really is my hope," Rambeau said.
Wallace is now hoping to be a part of that by helping teach dance at EPACENTER.
"The opportunity to teach so that I can teach the cultura, so other kids can embrace that. People can be happy in their own skin, in their own cultura, and being proud to say 'yes, I'm a Latina dancer,'" she said.
Rambeau said information about the program can be found on their website. She said they focus on serving the East Palo Alto community and people from the surrounding areas that have connections to East Palo Alto.