SPREAD
YOUR WINGS.

Spread Your Wings helps young people build social-emotional skills, confidence, and courage through the performing arts.

WE FLY. WE SOAR.Our Story ↓
Youth leaping with joy against a city skyline
Ages 5 — 21
ExpressCreateLeadFlySoarExpressCreateLeadFlySoar
ExpressCreateLeadFlySoarExpressCreateLeadFlySoar

One journey.
Express. Create. Lead. Fly. Soar.

These five words are the heart of Spread Your Wings, and the journey every young person takes with us.

Express pillar — youth in action
01

Express

Acting, dance, and storytelling help young people understand their emotions and speak with confidence.

Builds: Voice + self-awareness

Create pillar — youth in action
02

Create

Young people turn their own ideas and real-life experiences into stories, scripts, and film.

Builds: Creativity + collaboration

Lead pillar — youth in action
03

Lead

Mentorship and check-ins help young people make decisions, support each other, and lead with courage.

Builds: Leadership + responsibility

Fly pillar — youth in action
04

Fly

Showcases and performances give young people the stage to share their work and celebrate their growth.

Builds: Confidence + opportunity

Soar pillar — youth in action
05

Soar

Travel and new experiences open up the world, because young people soar when they can see how far their wings can take them.

Builds: Vision + possibility

Two young girls smiling together at the youth centerThree young boys laughing together at the youth center
The Vision

WE MEET YOUTH WHERE THEY ARE. THEN WE HELP THEM FLY.

Spread Your Wings is a new initiative helping young people build social-emotional skills, confidence, and courage through the performing arts. A supportive space where youth of color ages 5 to 21 find their voice and grow into leaders.

Rooted in Chicago and launching in Los Angeles, the vision is to bring young people from both cities together to learn from each other and promote change.

ActingDanceStorytellingTravelAnd more
A snippet of past work · Chicago

Learning happens together.

This is a glimpse of what we have done before with young people in Chicago, and a sample of what Spread Your Wings will bring to life.

In this piece, our girls took a real issue they face at home, hard conversations with their moms, and turned it into something they could perform. That is the heart of the work: young people take what they are living and turn it into art. This is the model we will build with young people in Los Angeles.
Behind the scenes of a short skit we were creating at an elementary school. Most of these boys I started working with in third grade, and this was them in eighth grade. By this time, they always acted too cool to participate in stuff, but in this moment I was really proud of them because they had learned the material I had given them. Now they're all juniors and seniors in high school. But this is what I mean about our young men being underestimated, because people can look at this video and assume all kinds of things, but these young men are incredible. One of them just recently got back from traveling to Africa.
In Loving Memory

Our Why

Spread Your Wings is dedicated to three incredible young men we lost to gun violence in Chicago. Every leap we take, every story we tell, is for them.

Phillip · Bryson & Hashawn

How growth continues

Young leaders lift others.

Young leaders mentor the ones coming up behind them, and the whole community rises with them.

→
→
  • ✓4 founding youth ambassadors 
  • ✓Each ambassador mentors two young people
  • ✓Open to youth of color ages 5 to 21
  • ✓Supportive spaces for connection and creativity
EXPRESSION
Young people leaping beneath the Gateway Arch

Ready to soar?

Whether you are a young person, parent, educator, partner, or funder, there is a place for you in this vision.

Become an AmbassadorSupport the Vision