Our Programs

Freedom Arts & Education Center offers over 50 Art and Academic Workshops! These workshops are interactive seminars that provide students of all ages and backgrounds with unique and meaningful learning opportunities that combine arts and academics. Our teaching artists facilitate explorations of multiple disciplines in a fun, educational setting aligning with school and organizational curriculum and principles. These workshops can run as one-time, one-hour programs, or can be spread out over multiple visits for a more cumulative and thorough learning experience.

We facilitate workshops for… 

Unleashing Potential     St. Louis County Libraries
Family Forward             St. Louis Public Libraries
Faith For Justice           Missouri History Museum
St. John’s UCC             St. Louis Homeschool Cooperative
LifeWise STL                Tower Grove Christian Academy
Arch Co-Op                   Maplewood Public Library
Pilgrim UCC                  De Soto Public Library  

Camp CAPE (Community, Arts, Power, Education) is Freedom Arts & Education Center’s annual K-12 summer camp. Camp CAPE offers free tuition, robust arts classes, academic skills building, weekly field trips, swimming and physical activities, and community education. Each day includes before and after care, two meals and snacks, and free transportation both ways to most parts of the city. All curriculum and activities are designed around Black liberation, wholistic health, and trauma-informed pedagogy. Arts-centered activities include music, movement, writing, public art, and visual arts, and also including literacy, math, technology, and team-sports. We take field trips to historic and cultural sites around St. Louis, and to Fairground and St. Vincent pool every week. The camp includes our annual Juneteenth Cookout and culminates in our 12th annual Freedom Arts Expo providing opportunities for broader community engagement and for our youth to present and perform. Because summer months are often a season of learning loss and higher risk for our youth, it is critical that there are accessible, safe, relevant, and vibrant opportunities for them. Our programs provide youth with a safe, nurturing, resourced environment where their needs and goals are centered within arts learning, academic support, spiritual wellness, and community organizing. Email us at camp@FAECSTL.org to inquire about enrollment and learn more.

This program has been supported by Neeb Family Foundation, Operation Food Search, and Faith For Justice.  

Every August we host our Freedom Arts Expo. This annual block-party-meets-art-fair is a day of workshops, performances, presentations, and resource sharing to the community with the goal of uniting people through the arts, wrapping up the summer, and kicking off the next school year. Youth and their families come for food, games, live music, dancing, arts activities, and access to a plethora of free resources including school supplies, school uniforms, and haircuts, and so much more. Placing an emphasis on hip-hop, public art, and creativity across the diaspora, the Expo is a unique, quality, annual community arts event in North St. Louis. Since 2012, this has been our cornerstone event to bring people together and show what community looks like, why the arts matter, and why access to quality education is a human right. Email us at info@FAECSTL.org to support this program and learn more. 

From beautifying our streets and uplifting our community, to improving life skills and creative abilities, we shape our stories and determine our destiny.

In Arts Organizing, our scholars work closely with our teaching artists and local organizations to intentionally grow in their creativity, professionalism, artistic crafts, and social consciousness. This program gathers resources and make space for scholars to be financially compensated as they receive arts learning and education, and focused time for ongoing individual works, collaborative projects, and exposure trips. These opportunities allow our scholars to discover passions, deepen processes, and develop positive practices. Scholars engage with community projects and events and guided activities to learn a wide range of needed skills for a life in creative fields. Scholars work on mock and real artistic and community projects, explore local institutions, expand their network of mentors, develop their own creative voice, and gain the skills and confidence needed to succeed in their school years and beyond, all while being compensated for their valuable time and efforts right now. This community-based arts education program allows our scholars to participate in a variety of creative learning mediums that develop artistic skills, interact with the public, and embed youth deeper in their communities through service-learning projects with direct impact.

Whether we're painting murals, beautifying parks, visiting a museum, writing poems and songs, learning public speaking, choreographing dances, or producing plays, this program challenges our scholars in fun and relevant ways while providing them with guided instruction from skilled artists and deserved compensation and support. Our scholars learn to engage their communities and enact social change using their creative skills. Through arts learning and community collaboration, our scholars make connections to themselves, their communities, and the world at large in order to shape their stories and determine their destinies.

After Sessions take place after schools dismiss on Mondays and Wednesdays and provides 30 preK-12th graders with a safe, nurturing space and teachers for arts learning, community arts training, and academic support. After getting a meal and free time, scholars work with tutors and teaching artists to achieve academic, artistic, and social-emotional goals. Since 2014, dozens of young people living in systemically under-resourced areas have received access to a safe, resourced space for homework help, academic enrichment, arts education, and spiritual growth. Our team has empowered and equipped 100% of our scholars to bring their reading and math skills up to grade level. Additionally, 100% of our scholars have shown drastic improvement in their writing skills, artistic skills, and spiritual health. Enrollment is free, compensation for youth is available, and transportation from most schools and parts of the city is included.

This program has been generously supported by The St. Louis Community Foundation, The Pettus Foundation, LinkedSelling and Siteman Family Charitable.  

"Once you learn to read, you will be forever free." -Frederick Douglass

Freedom Readers strengthens the literacy skills of youth living in systemically divested areas by developing a library of highly engaging, developmentally appropriate, and culturally relevant books, and then providing opportunities and resources for scholars to improve literacy skills. Scholars read with tutors and mentors during our programs, receive the support and guidance needed to improve literacy, and are awarded books to take home to grow their own personal libraries. They are working to improve their reading speed, the frequency of reading, their understanding of what they have read, and making reading commonplace in their homes. This program thrives on the generosity of individuals and groups willing to donate funds and new books, and on the strength of our teaching artists and volunteers to find innovative, consistent ways to increase literacy activities with our scholars.  

This program has been supported by The Assistance League of St. Louis, Usborne Books, Pathfinder Church, and many generous individuals. 

“We desire to bequeath two things to our children. The first one is roots; the other one is wings.”

-Sudanese proverb


Freedom Arts Youth Leaders are scholars who are at least 18 years old and have completed two years of our After Sessions program with an 84% attendance rate, attended at least 4 of our community events each year for 2 years, and receive the approval of the Directors and current Youth Leaders. This program is the next level for them. Youth Leaders are financially compensated for their work in our arts and academics programs as they set and achieve goals and engage in regular feedback and training sessions. As young people living in systemically divested areas and subjected to ongoing racism and classism, it’s deeply important for them to know they are loved, special, deserving, and capable of amazing things as we work to dismantle oppressive systems. They need to know that they are created in the image of God, are deserving of being a part of a beloved community, and are equipped to correct injustices and regain control of their communities. Youth Leaders engage in mentoring and spiritual growth classes which connect them to mentors and create a safe space for them to share their hopes, dreams, doubts, and struggles. Youth enrolled in this program receive set aside, ongoing time with our staff for close counsel and support, and receive first choice for job placement, training opportunities, and organizational leadership. 

“Any program that's revolutionary is an advancing program. Revolution is change.”
-Fred Hampton


This program activates our Youth Leaders and scholars to get out into their communities in radical service. Through key partnerships, we organize community events like our annual Black Futures Fest, Trunk or Treat, WinterFest, Community Cookouts, and St. John’s Church Community Breakfasts. This program also includes our community support fund through which we gather funds and resources to serve members of our community in crisis situations.