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  

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

Create Days make space and gather resources for ongoing individual works, collaborative projects, and exposure trips. These opportunities allow our scholars to discover passions, deepen processes, and develop positive practices. Connections to mentors and career development are even more things made possible through Create Days. Whether we're painting murals, beautifying parks, visiting a museum, writing poems and songs, 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 support from dedicated mentors. Through the arts, our scholars make connections to themselves, their communities, and the world at large in order to shape their stories and determine their destinies.  

This program has been funded in part by the Arts and Education Council, We Raise Foundation, The Luminary, Regional Arts Commission, Caddis Life, and STL Violence Prevention Commission. Art supplies and music equipment is donated by Flanagan Paint & Supply and Play It Forward STL, as well as by many generous individuals.  

Every August we host our Freedom Arts Expo. This annual block-party-meets-art-fair is a day of workshops, performances, and presentations provided at no cost to the community with the goal of uniting people through the arts. Placing an emphasis on hip-hop, public art, and creativity from multiple cultures, the Expo is a one of a kind quality arts event in North St. Louis. The Freedom Arts Expo showcases emerging and established teaching and performing artists, makes the arts available to the community, and exhibits the opportunities available through our organization. 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.   

The Freedom Arts Expo has been funded in part by Philanthropy at PNC.  

After Sessions take place after schools dismiss on Mondays and provides 30 K-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 and artistic goals. Since 2014, dozens of young people living in systemically under-resourced areas have received access to a safe space for homework help, academic enrichment, and arts education. Our team has empowered and equipped 100% of our scholars to bring their reading skills up to grade level with 30% now reading above grade level. Additionally, 100% of our scholars have shown drastic improvement in their mental math fluency and writing skills. Enrollment is free, compensation for youth is available, transportation to 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. 

In the middle of a global pandemic and rampant injustice, we honored our mission and the stated needs of our community by starting a school. 2020 brought the inaugural year for the Freedom Arts Academy: a free, hybrid microschool based in the arts, faith, and Black culture. Our staff developed a decolonized curriculum with our youth that is rooted in their identity and goals to serve their wholistic mental, emotional, and spiritual health. Thanks to generous funders and grantmakers, all scholars received the needed technology for virtual learning for the heavily quarantined 2020-2021 school year.  Our scholars earned an 87% grade average and 90% attendance average. Creative output, academic skills, and spiritual consciousness grew for each and every one of us. In the 2021-2022 school year, the majority of our scholars returned to their public and charter schools. Freedom Arts Academy continues to operate as an alternative, independent method of earning a high school diploma for a small number of our high school scholars.

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

Tembea Haki means “walk righteous” in Swahili. Because many of those with systemic power do not operate righteously, our communities are often in a state of brokenness and disinvestment. We battle this, in part, by rising above those circumstances and taking hold of our own power to walk and live righteously. We believe that righteous living is critical to healing and wholeness, and that reconciliation to our Creator and to each other happens when we put love and justice in action. In Tembea Haki, our scholars 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.

“Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need” (Matthew 6:33)  

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

“Wanafunzi” is the Swahili word for a student, a committed disciple of a person, principle, or path. Within Freedom Arts, we challenge our scholars to commit to a life of disciplined artistic, academic, and spiritual practice. 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. One-on-one mentoring not only connects each of our scholars to a mentor who will show and teach them these things, but it also creates a safe space for our scholars to share their hopes, dreams, doubts, and struggles. Scholars enrolled in this program receive set aside, ongoing one-on-one time with our staff for close counsel and support, and receive first choice for job placement, training opportunities, and organizational leadership.