At the end of East Broad Street in the Oakwood neighborhood is Oakwood Arts Inc., a nonprofit focused on teaching creative skills to youths, building new career opportunities and increasing diversity across multiple fields. For the children of the neighborhood, Oakwood Arts is an avenue to learn and grow, even during a pandemic.

For the nonprofit’s board president, Dr. Shantell J. Chambliss, Oakwood Arts is a way to serve an area that continues to be a large part of her life and that of her family. Her grandparents lived just down the street from Oakwood Arts and her uncle still lives there.

“The Oakwood neighborhood is a part of me and Oakwood Arts is providing a service that the children in this neighborhood have never had access to,” Dr. Chambliss says.

Through a variety of semester-long classes and weeklong intensives, middle and high school students have fun while learning skills in photography, graphic design, costume design and digital storytelling. Students get to use state-of-the-art equipment and software, explore career opportunities and develop their individual creative voice. They take field trips and have mentoring and networking opportunities with local creative professionals.

Oakwood Arts began in early 2017, the creation of executive director Shannon Castleman, who came up with the idea after driving past Thomas Branch Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church at the corner of 35th and P streets in the East End. Seeing the potential for an East End community arts center that would provide arts education for children and teens and teaching experience for VCUarts students and recent graduates, Ms. Castleman got to work.

Dr. Chambliss got involved with Oakwood Arts initially as part of her work with the consulting firm, Nonprofitability. Starting in late 2017 and spanning about seven months, she helped the new nonprofit develop a strong internal structure.

“I immediately fell in love with the mission,” Dr. Chambliss says. “After our client relationship ended, I was moved to stay involved with the organization and applied to join the board of directors.”

She joined the board in January 2019 and was elected board president that September. Her term runs for two years.

Since Oakwood Arts’ founding, nearly 300 students and almost 60 college students and recent graduates have been part of the nonprofit’s programs.

“Our goal is to respond to the challenges presented by the absence of creative skills development in many public schools, provide a richer educational experience and a viable education-employment pathway for students interested in pursuing creative careers,” Dr. Chambliss says.

The gaps in school programs have only become wider during the coronavirus pandemic. But even during this time, Oakwood Arts staff, mentors and volunteers have been busy putting together more than 200 art kits for youngsters in the Richmond community that are packed with various art supplies, such as crayons, color pencils, watercolor paint sets and paint brushes, markers, glue sticks and liquid glue. The kits are delivered to students through Richmond Public Schools food distribution sites, with students and families getting two weeks worth of creative and educational activities put together by community educators and artists. The activities also touch on some of the Standards of Learning and slip in information on various careers in related creative fields.

During the pandemic, Oakwood Arts has had to adjust its programming to an online format for youngsters. When the pandemic is over, some of those classes will remain online, Dr. Chambliss says.

With restrictions in place statewide, Oakwood Arts’ planned restoration of the Thomas Branch Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church into a new headquarters has been put on hold — for now.

But Dr. Chambliss is undeterred, committed to providing East End’s youths an accessible, creative learning opportunity.

“Ensuring that Oakwood children have a safe space to express their creativity and pursue creative careers is a dream come true.”

Meet an advocate who successfully merges her creative side with her business side and this week’s Personality, Shantell J. Chambliss.

Occupation: Executive direc- tor, Dress for Success Central Virginia; principal consultant, Nonprofitability; and adjunct professor, Virginia Commonwealth University School of Business

Date and place of birth: Nov. 8 in Richmond.

Current residence: Varina.

Education: Bachelor’s degree, Virginia Commonwealth Uni- versity, 2004; MBA, Strayer University, 2009; and Ph.D. in organization and management, Capella University, 2015.

Family: Husband, Jesse; and children, Jesse III, Kendall and Jayden.

No. 1 volunteer position: President of the board of directors, Oakwood Arts Inc.

When and why Oakwood Arts Inc. was founded: Oakwood Arts sprang to life in the early months of 2017 when founder and executive director Shannon Castleman drove by an abandoned church on the corner of 35th and P streets. She knew that a community arts center in the heart of the East End, where there was a deficit of comprehensive arts programming, would expose kids and teens to digital arts technology, teach valuable technical skills that could lead to careers in creative industries, and in turn help address the lack of diversity in those fields. It would also open up opportunities for VCUarts students and recent graduates to share their skills with an underserved community while gaining valuable teaching experience. Within a few short months, Oakwood Arts was off the ground. Oakwood Arts immediately set about establishing partnerships with other neighborhood organizations, including the Peter Paul Development Center, Blue Sky Fund, Anna Julia Cooper School, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the Salvation Army Boys and Girls Club, with all of whom we continue to partner.

My role with Oakwood Arts: As board president, my primary role is to work alongside the executive director to lead the development and refinement of our impact metrics, the cultivation of grants and individual gifts and to help ensure the board’s directives, policies and resolutions are carried out.

What Oakwood Arts means to me: Oakwood Arts physically sits at the end of the street where my grandparents lived and where my uncle still resides. The Oakwood neighborhood is a part of me and Oakwood Arts is providing a service that the children in this neighborhood have never had access to. Ensuring that Oakwood children have a safe space to express their creativity and pursue creative careers is a dream come true.

Oakwood Arts mission: To make art and careers in creative industries accessible to all through community engagement, inspiring programming and experiential education.

No. 1 objective: To create an education-employment pathway in creative industries and expose and encourage middle and high school students and emerging professionals from Richmond’s East End to pursue viable careers in creative and media arts fields such as film, photography, graphic design, editing, animation and costume design.

Strategy for achieving it: We achieve this objective primarily through two programs. Our Arts & Technology Program for middle and high school students from the East End comprise semester- long classes and weeklong intensives that focus on the digital and technical skills students need to succeed in the creative workforce.

We partner with East End-based schools, social service organizations, cultural institutions and leaders in the city’s corporate and creative industries to offer classes such as photography, graphic design, costume design and digital storytelling. Classes give students the opportunity to use state-of- the-art equipment and software, explore career opportunities and develop their individual creative voice and include field trips, one-on-one mentoring and networking opportunities with local creative professionals.

Our mentorship program allows us to provide hands-on opportunities to prepare college-age creative profession- als to pursue creative careers through valuable field experience — each Arts & Technology Program is led by a lead mentor and assistant mentors — professional training and networking opportunities with industry professionals who can assist them in entering the creative workforce. Five Oakwood Arts mentors already have gone on to positions in creative industries, including graphic design, creative advertising and film based on the connections they made through our organization.

What Oakwood Arts does for young people: We aim to provide not only high-quality and engaging arts and media arts classes and technical training for students and emerging creative professionals, but also to give them the tangible professional training and networking opportunities that are so vital to entering creative careers. Our goal is to respond to the challenges presented by the absence of creative skills development in many public schools, provide a richer educational experience and a viable education-employment pathway for students interested in pursuing creative careers.

Number of young people in Oakwood Arts program: Since 2017, 297 youths have participated in our semester-long programs and/or week- long intensives, and 39 of our students have participated in more than one of our art and tech programs. Fifty-nine college students and recent graduates have served as program mentors or volunteers, and we have engaged more than 1,766 community members in arts and tech activities at more than 40 events.

We could do more if: We had a reliable, steady stream of monthly income. This would ensure we are able to plan our programs far in advance, serve more students and, perhaps most importantly, mentor individual students throughout their time in middle and high school and beyond.

How Oakwood Arts is financed: Oakwood Arts relies almost entirely on contributed income. We receive a small portion of our funding from our wonderful partner organizations to help support our programs and ensure they are free for our participants. More than 95 percent of our funding comes from individual donors from our community, local founda- tions and corporations, and our major auction fundraising event, Solstice, which usually takes place in June.

What it takes to become an Oakwood Arts volunteer: We are always looking for new volunteers to help with everything from graphic design to staffing events. If you’re interested, email our programs coordinator at jessica@oakwoodarts.org to tell us how you would like to be involved.

Oakwood Arts’ COVID-19 response is: Providing new creative programs that children, teens and their families can do at home. Our primary new initiative is the Oakwood Arts Activity Kits. We started this when Richmond Public Schools closed to help mitigate some of the trauma students were experiencing as a result of the pandemic, as well as to help students stay engaged with their curriculum and connected to their school community and peers.

Each art activity kit includes enough supplies for two weeks of creative and educational prompts for K-5 children and teens. The prompts also are posted weekly on our website and Instagram. We are working with a RPS arts educator to ensure that each week’s prompts touches on Standards of Learning, and highlights a different creative career. We also are encouraging the children to post their activities to our Instagram or send to our website. We give out the kits and art prompts every week at different RPS food distribution sites. So far, we have distributed more than 200 kits.

RPS has been a great partner and excited about our work, and we are just now embarking on a new partnership with the Visual Arts Center, so together we’ll be able to streamline and expand the initiative quickly. Our plan is to continue the partnership with the Visual Arts Center through the end of the school year on June 8. But Oakwood Arts intends to keep the kits going until the fall, at least, with a focus on our families in the East End.

We also have moved some of our regular programs fully online. The first one is Photo Mondays, which is a club that usually meets weekly. Instead, we have put all prompts online and post a new activity each Monday on our Instagram. We are still targeting children and teens, but the virtual format actually works nicely because these are also fun for adults to try.

Upcoming projects: As our regular programs are on hiatus indefinitely as a result of the pandemic, we are working hard to move all our programs online and to create new ways to continue to serve our community.

How I start the day: In prayer and gratitude.

If I had more time, I would: Study cultural anthropology, specifically religious beliefs, behaviors and institutions.

Quote that I am inspired by: “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”— Mahatma Gandhi

Kindergarten taught me: That naps really are necessary.

Best late-night snack: Fruit Loops and milk. Cereal tastes so much better at night!

Something I love to do that most people would never imagine: I love to sew and actu- ally earned an associate degree in fashion before moving in to business management.

The person who influenced me the most: My mother.

Book that influenced me the most: “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison.

What I’m reading now: “The Nonprofit Strategy Revolution” by David La Piana.

Next goal: To help lead Oak- wood’s redevelopment of the space at 3511 P St.