Mission
Youth Empowerment through Arts and Humanities, Inc. (YEAH!) is building a Creative Connected Community by providing a safe and supportive environment in which young people can express their creativity and grow as individuals through community involvement.
We facilitate after-school programs dedicated to youth and art, with the goal of providing an arts & humanities facility for our community. We provide a space for an incredibly diverse range of arts, including acting, painting, music (performance, composition, and production), crafting, writing, photography, filmmaking and much, much more.
Our mission is to educate the youth of our community in the skills required for these arts, but also to teach the intrinsic value of each art and the value it has in our community. In so doing, it is our goal to enrich our community as a whole by empowering the upcoming generation.
WHAT WE DO AND WHO WE ARE: YEAH!
Youth Empowerment through Arts and Humanities, Inc. (YEAH!) is a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit charitable youth arts organization in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. YEAH! is a youth arts venue temporarily located at a family entertainment venue known as Lanes, Trains and Automobiles at 450 Butler Drive, in Murfreesboro. YEAH!’s mission in all its programming is to provide a safe learning environment for teens that will empower them not only in the arts but in life skills, volunteerism, and community service.
YEAH! offers all ages concerts, classes in performing arts, visual arts and humanities, homework help, and music camps during the summer. Our flagship summer camps are the Southern Girls Rock and Roll Camp (SGRRC) held at MTSU in Murfreesboro, the Tennessee Teens Rock and Roll Camp (TNTRC) held in Nashville, Tennessee, and the New York City Rock Camp (NYCRC) held in Brooklyn, NY. These are summer day camps for girls ages 10-17 (SGRRC), boys and girls ages 10-17 (TNTRC), and boys and girls ages 10-17 (NYCRC).
The mission of these camps is to support a culture of positive self-esteem and collaboration among young people while building community through music. These camps recognize the potential of every young person to be a strong, talented, creative, and empowered individual while providing a safe space where everyone “rocks.” In addition to instrument instruction, the camps offer workshops through which campers will learn the skills of songwriting, recording, and screen printing, as well as the invaluable life skills of teamwork and collaboration as they work together to complete projects over the course of the week. The campers are also treated every day to exclusive, live performances by local, regional, and national bands and artists, providing them the opportunity to experience a diverse range of musical styles.
The most exciting part of camp week is the opportunity for campers to form their own band and collaborate on writing, arranging and/or preparing a song for their band to perform at a showcase for family, friends and the public at the end of the week. These are real live rock shows, complete with sound and lights and a packed house of screaming fans!
These camps are designed to allow campers (regardless of race, class, or creed) freedom of expression and exploration through music and performance. In doing so, these campers are empowered to find their own voice and their own sound without creative boundaries or inhibitions.
YEAH! traces its roots back to 2003, when Kelley Anderson, then a student at Middle Tennessee State University, organized and kicked off the first Southern Girls Rock and Roll Camp (SGRRC) as a joint project between the feminist student organization Women for Women and the June Anderson Women’s Center. After several successful years of growth, Kelly Anderson, Anna Fitzgerald, Courtney Sharp, Andrew Jacks, Ryan York, and Nicole Tekulve founded YEAH! in 2006. Their vision was to create an organization that fostered the creativity of young individuals while building a community of like-minded volunteers and supporters who love the arts and want to share the arts with kids. YEAH! has served hundreds of young people over the past several years by offering year-round classes, summer camps, the School of Recording, the weekend group band practice program we call Rock Blok, filmmaking and photography, arts and crafts, theater arts, and visual arts. In addition, YEAH! provides a local venue to host all-ages shows in order to provide young people with a safe place to see live music.
YEAH! seeks to build a Creative Connected Community by providing a safe and supportive environment in which young people can express their creativity and grow as individuals through community involvement. We facilitate programs dedicated to youth and art, with the goal of providing a youth arts and humanities facility for our community. We provide a space for an incredibly diverse range of arts, including acting, painting, music (performance, composition, and production), crafting, writing, and much more. Our mission is to educate the youth of our community not only in the skills required for these arts but also the intrinsic value of art both for the individual and the community. In so doing, it is our goal to enrich our community as a whole by empowering the next generation. YEAH! has programs in both Middle Tennessee and Brooklyn, New York that serve pre-teens and teens. These programs do not discriminate on the basis of socioeconomic status, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or physical ability.
The Recording Arts program introduces students to modern audio recording equipment and methods. Rock Blok teaches teens how to play and write music through a rock band setting. The Culinary Arts program invites students into a commercial kitchen for basic lessons in the culinary arts. YEAH!’s Youth Choir teaches students the principles of voice and choir through unique and fun arrangements of popular and traditional music. YEAH!’s theatre department provides acting classes and produces four theatrical productions per calendar year. The visual arts programming provides opportunities for students to learn to draw, to paint, to sculpt. The arts and crafts programming gives kids the opportunities to use found resources and their hands to make paper, books, or designer clothing. The Rock Blok program provides weekly opportunities for bands to come together for practice under the watchful and helpful eye of a professional musician who has volunteered to be their band manager. Multiple summer camps (Southern Girls Rock and Roll Camp, Tennessee Teens Rock and Roll Camp, N.Y.C. Rock Camp, and Rock Blok Summer Camps) teach campers how to write, play, and record their own music.
YEAH! believes that an integral part of the arts experience is performance. There is no more satisfying or self-confidence-and-esteem-building experience than performance, and every child benefits from the opportunity to perform what he has learned. That is why every class, every camp, every program we offer culminates in a showcase where the students are provided a venue within which to show their friends, families and fans what they have learned. SGRRC showcase generally draws approximately 800 screaming, appreciative fans from all across the community! TNTRC showcase filled the auditorium at University School in Nashville its very first year in operation. And Rock Blok showcases and the showcases for our classes generally draw100-150 proud parents and envious friends. Visual artists display their work; film students run their films on our computer screens; actors are acting and singers are singing and bands are playing….it is a rush for everybody in the room and it is an experience NOT to be missed!
During the recent economic downturn, YEAH! has launched a scholarship program which, has greatly increased the number of kids able to participate while greatly enabling YEAH! to diversify its student population. We have offered during the course of the 2009-2010 programming session approximately 65 full or half scholarships across all our programming with a total value in excess of $12,000.00, to help make arts accessible to students and their families even when finances don’t permit and times are hard. YEAH! has been able to provide these scholarships through the generous donations of its fans, parents and supporters, and it has greatly enhanced the experiences in the arts that YEAH! is able to offer its teenage students.
Socialize with Us