Empowering Youth Through the Arts: The Vision of Natalie Frazier Allen and The Arts Empowerment Project | Oui Talk Raw

Natalie Frazier Allen Oui Talk Raw Live Interview rBeatz.com The Arts Empowerment Project

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Empowering Youth Through the Arts: The Vision of Natalie Frazier Allen and The Arts Empowerment Project

Natalie Frazier Allen is the CEO of The Arts Empowerment Project, an organization that offers high-quality arts programs to provide hope and opportunity to at-risk children. In this episode, Terry and Natalie discuss the healing power of the arts, fostering healthy communities, and discovering new career paths.

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Natalie Frazier Allen
rBeatz.com latest Oui Talk Raw guest, Natalie Frazier Allen, is a dynamic leader whose legal expertise and passion for the arts have driven her to create lasting change in the lives of at-risk youth. As the founder and CEO of The Arts Empowerment Project (TAEP), she channels her experience and advocacy for children affected by trauma and violence into a powerful arts-based initiative that helps young people find healing, hope, and resilience. Natalie’s professional background as an attorney, along with her dedication to the Charlotte community, fuels her mission to use the arts as a transformative force for vulnerable children.
 
Natalie’s career path is deeply rooted in her commitment to protecting and uplifting those in need. Before founding TAEP in 2011, she served as Chief of the Domestic Unit in the Attorney General’s Office for the District of Columbia. In this role, she addressed domestic violence cases, working to ensure justice and safety for affected families. Her work in this capacity strengthened her belief in the importance of support systems for children facing trauma. In Charlotte, she took this commitment further by becoming a Guardian ad Litem volunteer, where she represented the best interests of abused and neglected children in court. This hands-on experience in advocating for youth inspired her vision for TAEP.
 
The Arts Empowerment Project
TAEP emerged as a natural extension of Natalie’s passion for empowering children through positive, creative outlets. TAEP offers high-quality arts programming, enrichment experiences, and social-emotional development to children in need. These programs are designed to provide more than just artistic skills; they open doors to resilience and personal growth. TAEP’s belief that the arts can be a powerful tool for healing is backed by national studies that show participation in creative activities can help mitigate the effects of childhood trauma. For many children, the arts offer a path to greater academic achievement, improved social interactions, and emotional stability, transforming their lives in ways that traditional interventions may not.
 
Around the Community
Natalie’s influence extends beyond her work with TAEP. She serves as chair of the Board of Trustees for the Mint Museum, a prestigious cultural institution in Charlotte. This role allows her to merge her love for the arts with her leadership skills, helping guide the museum’s mission and outreach. Natalie has also been active on the boards of the Women’s Impact Fund and the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African American Arts + Culture, demonstrating her commitment to both the arts and the broader Charlotte community. Her leadership positions in these organizations reflect her belief in the power of art to create positive change, not only for individuals but for society as a whole.
 
Natalie’s educational background laid the foundation for her achievements. She earned her Juris Doctor (JD) degree from The George Washington University’s National Law Center and graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts from Spelman College. Today, she resides in South Charlotte with her husband and their two children, continuing her work to make a meaningful difference in the lives of others.
 
SHINE Fundraiser
One of the key events that support TAEP’s mission is the annual SHINE Fundraiser. This year’s event, SHINE 2024, will take place on October 16, 2024, at The Mint Museum Uptown. This event promises to be a night of inspiration and creativity, celebrating the transformative power of the arts. By attending, guests will not only enjoy a memorable evening but will also be investing in the future of vulnerable youth. The funds raised will directly support TAEP’s programs, providing artistic opportunities that foster resilience, broaden horizons, and build essential life skills for the children it serves.
 
An independent study by the University of North Carolina at Charlotte’s School of Social Work has highlighted the impact of TAEP’s programming. The study found that students who participated in TAEP’s pilot program experienced significant personal growth. They developed educational and career goals, improved peer interactions, engaged more deeply with their communities, and gained valuable life skills. Most importantly, these children discovered healthy emotional outlets and grew more confident, showing the power of the arts to change lives.
 
Natalie Frazier Allen’s dedication to the arts and her unwavering commitment to helping children overcome adversity have made her a true force for good in the Charlotte community. Through The Arts Empowerment Project, she continues to bring light, hope, and opportunity to young people, ensuring that they have the tools they need to thrive despite the challenges they face.
 
 

 
Q & A with Natalie Frazier Allen

Terry: Welcome to our show on rBeatz.com. Today, I have a special guest because I love to talk to people who are making the world a better place. I believe that life is like a giant painting, and each of us adds brush strokes that can change the painting for good or bad. Today, I have someone who is definitely a great brushstroke changing the environment around her. Natalie Frazier Allen is an attorney who has combined her passion for the arts with her commitment to advocate for children affected by violence and neglect. She founded the Arts Empowerment Project, and we’re going to have a great discussion about this. So welcome to the studio, Natalie. How are you?

Natalie: I’m great, Terry. Thank you for having me. Good morning!

Terry: Good morning! You do such amazing work.

Natalie: Thank you.

When you walk into a room, you have a powerful presence, but you’re also very humble. That humility is why you’re able to change so many lives. So let’s dive into what the Arts Empowerment Project is. Can you give us the basic mission?

The basic mission is that we’re breaking the cycles of violence and trauma through art opportunities that will ignite change in vulnerable youth. By “vulnerable youth,” we mean kids who have been underserved—not just due to income level, but also those who have experienced neglect, abuse, or community violence. We work with many kids in foster care and underserved communities, and we accept referrals for this purpose.

I love that you’re targeting age groups proactively. What you’re doing is preventative rather than just reactive. You’re setting things in motion to change lives and help society at large. How did you get started? You mentioned that you’re an attorney. What was your journey into law? Did you always know you wanted to be in law?

That’s a long journey. I started as an artist at heart. As a kid, I drew and painted, entered art contests, and loved language and English. In high school, I even thought I wanted to be a dentist at one point because of my experiences with braces. But then I was a victim of a holdup at my dentist’s office. A gunman held us hostage for two and a half hours. My mother was with me, and she tried to convince him not to hurt us. The police came in but unfortunately shot the wrong person who was trying to help us instead of the assailant. This was my introduction to law.

We pursued an excessive force case against the police. In the process, I met an assistant district attorney who was prosecuting the assailant. She inspired me, and I decided I wanted to be like her.

I can see how that experience would shape your path.

I ended up going to George Washington University for law school, right in the heart of D.C. After school, I was focused on civil law, but then my supervisor asked me to lead the domestic violence unit under the Violence Against Women Act. I opened the first domestic violence intake center in D.C.

What an incredible experience! It must have been so eye-opening.

Yes, it was. It made me realize how many people could be victims of violence, something that’s often swept under the rug. Since then, I’ve always kept in mind the kids who are affected.

When I first met you, I knew you were involved with the Mint Museum and the Harvey B. Gantt Center. You’re also a founder of the Visual Arts and Performing Arts Center (VABA). You’re well connected in the arts community!

Yes! Although I didn’t attend art school, my passion for art has always been there. I often fantasize about having my own studio to paint and draw, but I worry that I’d become obsessed and wouldn’t want to do anything else!

So you formed the Arts Empowerment Project in 2011. What inspired that?

While I was in D.C., I needed a break from the emotionally draining work I was doing, especially after expecting my son. After moving to North Carolina, I remembered those kids from my domestic violence cases and thought about how to help them break the cycles of trauma they experienced. I wanted to combine my passion for the arts with that goal, leading to the creation of the Arts Empowerment Project.

Who do you serve through this project?

We serve K-12 students through referrals from social workers, group homes, and judges. I was a guardian ad litem for six years in Charlotte, which helped me see the challenges these kids face. There are over 800 kids in the foster care system alone, and many more who aren’t accounted for.

That’s a significant number. How do you find these kids?

We get referrals from professionals who know their situations, and we partner with organizations like the YWCA and Safe Alliance. Our goal is to help kids who are ready to engage in our programs.

Great! We’re going to take a short break now to hear from our sponsors. When we come back, we’ll discuss the specific programs of the Arts Empowerment Project and the fundraisers you have in place. Stay tuned for more!

Welcome back to Oui Talk Raw. We’re all here on rBeatz.com in the studio today. I have Natalie Frazier-Allen, who is the founder and CEO of the Arts Empowerment Project. And we’re here talking about the impact that the Arts Empowerment Project has made. Let’s talk about the programs.

Yes.

I’ll let you lead more on that, and you know a lot about it.

Oh yeah, yeah. So we started out with 25 kids, teens, who were all in foster care at the time, and they were through our independent living program connections with Youth and Family Services. We started out with a cooking program. That was one of our first programs in conjunction with CPCC and the wonderful partnership with them and with Community School of the Arts, which is now Arts Plus. We wanted to expose kids to culinary arts and to the city. We had an encounters program along with the cooking program. A lot of kids who will age out of foster care need those independent living skills. So we had the partnership with CPCC and with Johnson & Wales too.

We had taken over the Johnson & Wales, and I just met some wonderful people who have been advisors to us, Melissa Verana from CPCC and Chef Beth, yeah, Chef Beth was wonderful with helping us, Beth Thompson-Peace. So many people came together to help us. People said, “I remember my collaborative model from the District of Columbia.” And I said, “People can work together.” They said, “Oh yeah, no need for me to reinvent the wheel, right? Because we have professionals in this regard.”

Using those programs, we had kids come in and do what we call the culinary boot camp. They learned basic cutting skills, cooking skills, shopping on a budget. Some kids had never cooked before.

Yeah, I mean, I wasn’t ever taught any of this. This would be great.

Some kids had never touched raw meat before. They were like, “Ugh, what is that?” I said, “This is chicken, you can buy a chicken and eat it for the rest of the week,” as opposed to buying, you know, nothing against any of the—

Good dinner, not the greatest food.

Yeah, but food deserts, you have fast food all the time. You can live beyond fast food. We all eat fast food at some point, but you don’t grow healthy just on fast food alone, and it’s expensive. Teaching them how to stretch a dollar, talking about healthy eating, what vegetables are, and how you can use canned goods even if you don’t have fresh vegetables and fruit, how to substitute, how to mix it together, and make it taste good.

It’s a great program.

Yeah, it was great. It was one of our first programs. Then we started another program. We built on those, you know, Free Arts. It’s called Free Art Friday. Now it’s Free Arts, and we go to schools and to the YWCA, which was a wonderful partner for us at that time. We still partner with them, and they have several centers. We would go to them and bring the arts to their after-school program with a focus on literacy and arts. One of their big focuses was improving their students’ literacy. It was really important for us to meet programs and people where they were at that time.

We brought the arts to them and used books, had them look at what they’re doing, and seal it into inspiration that a lot of kids lack. From culinary arts to visual performing arts, you find that they take art out of schools. There’s not that much art when I was a kid.

Yeah, and you’ve seen the studies where when someone is involved in arts—

Yes, three times more likely. Kids involved in the arts are three times more likely to earn a bachelor’s degree, four times more likely to be recognized for student achievement in schools, and five times more likely to drop out of school without art. And you know, it’s one thing for someone who’s grown up in a stable home because those statistics are true about them too, but when it comes to someone from the background that you’re dealing with, a lot of these art disciplines make it easier to express pain or what you’re harboring inside in words, but you can do it through art or written poetry. Dance is another way that you see them able to deal with it, and it comes out as a release.

Yeah, and it’s so inspiring. We can’t always stop what’s happening to kids. People get very focused on, “Well, this is overwhelming. What can I do to help?” What we found is that the arts are a universal language—performing arts, music, dance, visual arts. It’s the universal language. People understand it without having to say a word. We use the arts to help kids express that pain and stay resilient.

We can’t always stop what’s happening. We can keep them strong, keep them inspired. We use social-emotional learning as one of the tools to give them self-awareness about where they are, how they fit into the world. We take kids through our art access programs, another program we had, take them uptown, and take them to a play. We take them to see the buildings they see in the skyline. Some kids had never been inside a museum, which I found startling. I said, “You’ve never been inside the Harvey B. Gantt Center?” At the time, I was on the board there, and I was so interested in showing them the Ramirez Bearden exhibit. They were like, “Who’s Ramirez Bearden? Who’s Harvey Gantt?” I said, “He’s the first black mayor of Charlotte.” It did not resonate with them.

Some kids had never been uptown. It wasn’t until the Chetty report came out that people understood that Charlotte was last on the list for upward mobility. Kids were very disconnected from their city. To me, social capital and opportunity are so important to give kids an idea about who they could be, how to get there, and motivating them to explore.

In a city where many people have come out and done great things, I read a mini-biography every morning on someone I admire. A common thing I’ve seen is what was their defining moment—an art teacher or mentor showed them a specific thing like a museum or a piece of work, or they heard someone describe a musical piece a certain way. It changed their whole trajectory. 

They received more opportunities than they thought they could receive because they were looking for more opportunities.

Yes, because art is empowering.

Yes, especially coming from the backgrounds we’re talking about. It gives a sense of agency that was lost and builds that confidence back. When they accomplish something, like a painting or a lyric, or performing a song, it gives them confidence back in themselves. It builds that resilience. That’s a word I love because it’s something that’s missing for a lot of people right now. A lot of people don’t have that.

They don’t have the confidence and efficacy. How do you do things? It’s not just about thinking you can do it, but how do you get from point A to point B? Showing kids a light at the end of the tunnel—the hope that there is something out there for them. Just because they were born into a certain situation or family doesn’t mean they have to stay there. There’s so much more in the world, but they have to get out and see it.

Part of it is exposure. Part of it is immersion and training, having an interactive long-term experience that we provide. We have programs that run 12 weeks at a time and some that are shorter. We try both ways because sometimes kids in foster care don’t have a solid path, but it doesn’t mean they don’t get anything. They should have something.

I found back in my old days of working in policy in D.C., it’s true in almost every city that many kids languish in foster care who never get adopted. What happens to them while they’re in the system? What happens to kids trying to make a better life after adverse childhood experiences? The point is, we want kids to thrive and not just survive, to give them that hope. Even if they don’t make all 12 classes, if they make six, we pour into them the six they can come to. They’re getting spoken word, inspirational facilitators speaking power and positivity into them, whereas they may have only heard negativity about themselves.

It’s so powerful for a young person, even little kids, to say, “You did a great job. You created something that wasn’t there before.” Many kids have talents they’ve never explored. We had a young man who wrote a beautiful poem. One of the other programs we have is Promoting Peace and Justice. We partner with law enforcement—CMPD was our first partner. Taking down those barriers is important. He wrote this incredible poem. He came in looking like, “Oh, I don’t care, I don’t want to be here.” By class four, with help from our spoken word poets, he wrote his own poem. 

Amazing.

He didn’t think much of it—just said, “Yeah, it’s pretty good.” We were all blown away. He wrote something you could publish in any book.

Right, or hang on a wall.

Or hang on a wall. Yeah, there are so many places for him. And having that agency, as you mentioned, to say, “Look, I did this great thing,” made him proud. We gave it to him in a little acrylic frame, and he probably took a picture with it. That’s something he definitely didn’t experience before. We ended up taking kids the other night, thanks to one of our sponsors, Ally Bank, who generously provided 20 tickets. We took kids to see The Lion King.

Oh, wow!

Most of the kids had never been to a performance before. What an experience! The Lion King is one of the best musicals ever. Just seeing their eyes light up—kids are always trying to be cool, you know?

Gotta be cool, right?

Exactly! But you could see the amazement in their faces. It’s incredible.

Yeah, because again, it’s another part of hope. They see it and think, “Maybe I could be that one day.”

After the performance, we were invited to a talk-back session with the cast. The lead actor who played Simba shared that he had been rejected five times but never gave up. He kept honing his craft. We’re not trying to turn all kids into artists, but there are so many valuable lessons to learn through the arts.

Absolutely! Whatever you do, you don’t start with a masterpiece. If you don’t take that first step, you’ll never create something great. It’s all about resilience.

Exactly! It’s about taking action. Things may not go well at first, but if you stick with it, you’ll find your way. That’s true in business, the arts, sports—anywhere. It’s so important to have that perseverance and a can-do attitude instead of pouring negativity into kids.

Right, it’s all about protective factors—art experiences, motivational speaking, cooking—all that agency and exposure give kids a different path.

Yes, you can be on a different path than the one you started on.

You mentioned one of your sponsors—there are likely grants involved. Do you have a fundraiser coming up?

We do! Our Shine fundraiser is on October 16. I’d love for people to check out our website at www.theartsempowermentproject.org. We’re selling tickets, and it’s open to the public. TD Bank is our lead sponsor, along with other wonderful sponsors and individual supporters. The event will be held at the Mint Museum, which is a fantastic venue.

My wife has attended this; she loves it!

Yes! We loved seeing your wife there last year. I hope you both can come back this year if you’re free. It’s a Wednesday night from 6 to 9. We’ll have great entertainment, food, and silent auctions. Some auction pieces will be on our website and social media, so follow us for updates. It’ll be a wonderful evening, and we’re honoring some special people this year, highlighting the best Charlotte has to offer.

And it’s for such a powerful cause! How can people get involved?

The best way is through our website. We have a small team that’s growing. This is our 10th year of impact—thank you! We started in 2014 with 25 kids and have served over 3,000 since then. This fundraiser is vital, and outside of monetary support, we welcome volunteers. We have a program called Heart Packs, which reach children during out-of-school time in the summer. Many kids don’t have much to do when they get home. We provide inspiration packages with art supplies, learning books, and creative toys. Art supplies can be expensive, so we also include stress balls, fidget toys, and healthy snacks. We also include “heart notes”—inspirational messages from other kids and volunteers to let them know someone is thinking of them.

You’re amazing! Your humility is inspiring, but you truly are changing lives with your vision and action.

Thank you! We’ve had a couple of kids come back to say thank you, and that’s gold. Seeing them living in their purpose and knowing we had a part in that is incredibly rewarding.

Thank you for being here today.

Thank you so much!

And thank you for tuning in to Oui Talk Raw. If you’re watching on rBeatz.com live, you can check out the page for Natalie Frazier-Allen and the Arts Empowerment Project. If you’re on YouTube, search rBeatz.com to find us. Don’t forget to explore our playlist and shows, especially this one with Natalie. We hope this interview inspires you to be a positive influence in your community. Much love, and see you next time!

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