Hollywood Arts was six months old and programming at partner nonprofits serving homeless youth when I got the idea to do a seated dinner…one of those large fancy galas that most charities don’t take on until years into operations. I somehow managed to convince my board chairman Gregory Butler to go along with me and Gregory was instrumental in helping us secure our honoree, Tommy Tallarico, whose energy and passion for Hollywood Arts would help us open our doors before the end of the first year.
Tommy Tallarico was a video game rock star. A sound composer who launched the idea of putting scored music to video games. My contribution to the dinner was to say yes. Yes, Hollywood Arts will honor the video game industry–a decision that came with some controversy as games were being held accountable for every woe afflicting the youth of today. And here I was running a program for those same youth.
Hog wash. We went forward. Tommy brought not only his colleagues to the event but secured a 36 piece orchestra and three opera singers to perform at the event. Convinced that charity is serious business but raising money need not always be, I invited costumed actors to work the crowd and created center pieces out of gaming consoles. It worked. The event netted enough money for me to rent a building.
By fall of that year, I had a space in Hollywood and enough spare change and good friends to build a computer lab (thanks IBM and The Water Buffalo Club) and a music room (thanks Yamaha, Steve Vai and many others). I had no money to hire teachers so the center opened only two days a week…Saturday and Sunday, when I could get volunteers to come in and teach classes. Those classes were packed. Melissa Magsaysay, fashion editor for the LA Times taught weekly; Charissa Saverio, DJ Rap, taught a turntable class; actors Matthew Humphreys and Bruce Ducat taught acting…young people from the streets poured in.
Elizabeth Levitt Hirsch, founding board member, grew convinced we needed to be open 5 days a week. Her gift gave us that opportunity. I never looked back. Before I knew it, Hollywood Arts was vibrant, dynamic and alive. Young people were learning (smoking pot and screwing around as well) but they were learning.
I learned as I went. I listened to the students and together, driven by my own intuition and mixed with their feedback, the space grew until we were offering 5 classes a day, 5 days a week, at no cost to homeless youth. Classes included fashion, music, improvisation, and even interior architecture. The point was not to make homeless youth more homeless by asking them to choose careers as artists but rather to use creative activities in which they were truly interested to engage them, motivate them and help them take charge of their own personal growth.
