Meet Stephanie Wahome-Lassiter
After graduating from Miami University Stephanie lead AmeriCorps teams while working for City Year Detroit and City Year Seattle/King County. Upon graduating with her Executive Masters in Nonprofit Leadership from Seattle University she became one of the founding staffers of E.L. Haynes Elementary School in Washington D.C., while earning a Masters in Teaching from American University. Stephanie elevated her work with youth onto a national platform as the National Director of Education for Scenarios USA, a NYC based nonprofit, in which she implemented the national education program and Cleveland regional programs for nine years. Stephanie’s education and film based programming supported, engaged, and inspired youth to realize their full potential through the power of education, media, and storytelling. Over 15,000 Cleveland youth were served 1,100 educators trained in 5 curricula, 10 winning stories written by youth were made into films and screened at film festivals, schools and The Showtime Channel. When the national organization ceased all operations in 2017 Clevelanders requested to continue to address the need. A funders group was formed and Stephanie is now the Executive Director for Art of Me in which she is expanding the work by deepening the impact in Cleveland. As the executive producer of Art of Me she produced 2 feature and 5 short films in Cleveland and NYC. Stephanie is also the co-founder of All About Your Health. A 100% volunteer-based organization that has connected over 11,000 youth, families, and volunteers to over 200 programs, services, and organizations in Northeast, Ohio since 2011.
Creative Impact Fund Project: The Girl
The creative vision for the project is to highlight the beauty, intelligence and priceless nature of black girls and their moms. Stephanie will do this by creating a film piece of a girl searching for her beauty but realizing it has been right in front of her all along. I will conduct interviews with girls in the community about what beauty means to them and how they would like to see themselves portrayed. After creating a script, we will have a casting call for the community members to be a part of the production. My audience is middle and high school aged girls. I will plan for middle and high school aged girls and their moms to participate in the film piece. I would like for this experience to encourage them to create their own sister and community circles of black women supporting each other through a facebook group, attending each others events and supporting their businesses. I would like for this project to bring women and their daughters together to celebrate our beauty and diversity as black women. This project is important to me because black girls aren’t always highlighted as being beautiful as their authentic selves. There is so much self hate and mother and daughter hate that it is affecting so many of us. I hope this project brings together fun, joy and we see the need to support each other.