By Shanice Lewis, New York Amsterdam News
Catherine Green is using her passion for the arts to bring new opportunities to residents of the East New York community and beautify the neighborhood with the grand opening of the new Arts East New York headquarters.
As founder and executive director of AENY, Green felt that there was a lack of artistic programming in the community. She found herself making trips outside of the neighborhood to take her daughter to dance class and thought there should be more opportunities within the neighborhood.
“There’s no gathering space in this neighborhood for the community to build and we hope to fill that void in the neighborhood with this new space,” said Green.
Growing up, Green was treated to visits to museums, galleries, Broadway shows and other art exhibitions by her mother. She studied fashion in high school and later at Meredith College in Raleigh, N.C. Further chasing her designer dreams, she went on to work for various companies and even owned her own fashion line for a while.
Started in 2009, AENY serves as an organization working to promote socioeconomic change in the community through multicultural arts programs. They work to address and reduce crime in the community, provide educational and artistic outlets for the youth, offer support to families in economic developing areas and showcase the talent within the neighborhood.
AENY offers programs that include youth arts education, public arts beautification initiative and Artsplosion, all to celebrate, teach and promote artists in East NY.
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