- [Announcer] Major funding for this program was provided by.

(bright upbeat music) - As she is part of a fast growing community of entrepreneurs thriving in Kensington, thanks to spaces like this that serve as a platform for new ideas.

Hi, I'm Anne Ishii.

In this episode of "Movers and Makers", we'll visit some studios, and see what's happening in this creative hub.

(roller skateboard thunking) (upbeat music) - Kreate Hub started with the idea to make a community of artistic and creative people within one building.

Our first location was in The Bronx.

We have two more buildings, one in Nashville and one in Baltimore.

And every building has its own personality.

Philadelphia, this location is really magical and fabulous because we have attracted this incredibly young, driven group of entrepreneurs.

(spray can fizzing) (upbeat music) We have 3D designers, we have fashion designers, we have lash techs and many tattoo artists.

It's become a really interesting community of creatives.

(upbeat music) We're in an interesting neighborhood.

It is Port Richmond on the edge of Kensington.

There is a heroin epidemic in this neighborhood.

It was a scary situation during COVID.

We had a security team come and clear this area.

- The front of the building without exaggerating had to have hundreds of people lined up.

There was blankets, tents.

- I would have appointments to come meet me here, to look at studios and they would drive off.

They wouldn't even get out of the car.

- It took us maybe about a week to clear everything out and maybe another week to show our presence.

We're here 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

- [Iva] Cliff helps me deal with any issues inside or outside the building that may occur.

(upbeat music) In August of 2020, we did welcome our first tenants and now we're full.

It's been a success.

Anthony and Donna, they come, they bring their beautiful child, and they're here every day, working hard, they hustle.

- [Donna] I do anything artsy, a bunch of DIYs, clothes, upholstery, sewing classes.

- [Anthony] I do videography photography, music, closing lines.

I did a lot of work with a lot of different up and coming artists.

- I've been making things since I was in grade school, I will say about seven, eight years old, but I actually picked up the sewing machine about six, seven years ago.

I also hold sewing classes two to three times a week.

I have a bunch of videos of my students learning, and I think it's so fun.

- I came here today to check out Donna Ocean sewing class.

We learned how to make a pair of shorts and take apart a shirt and resew it together.

You're a very good teacher, and your class is interesting.

(sewing machine rumbles) - I'm really teaching what I love.

When it comes down to the creative part, that's where I thrive.

But with computers and videos and things like that, he's pretty much the genius when it comes to that kind of stuff.

- Nowadays, people not looking at TV no more.

They on their phone.

So I got a mobile game app that you can download on the App Store, titled Everybody Beef.

- [Announcer] Choose your character.

The count is underway.

- Yay.

- When kids play the video game now, they're able to hear their music.

A lot of times, kids not paying attention to the music, they paying attention to just playing, but they gonna keep hearing it.

Not listening to the music at first, but then I might keep playing, I might keep hearing it 'cause it's gonna keep playing over and over and over, then I might be walking in the supermarket.

I might hear the song on a radio and be like oh, I know this.

It's just something that's for the future, that's where technology is taking us at.

And that's what I like.

I like to be a part of technology.

- We just love the environment when we came here.

So we think this was the space for us to be.

- DNA Studio, it stand for Donna and DNA is like, it's something that's within you, it's in your blood.

So that's how we just came together.

So if you look at it, that's both of us, DNA.

(upbeat music) - Half of 'em went to college, many of them did not.

They learned their craft.

They learned it early, and they're sticking with it.

They're making money and running businesses.

They don't need to go to college.

Like Tahron, for instance.

- I'm 21 years old.

And I started this in college.

And one of the days I dropped my first hoodies, I made like a thousand dollars at first day.

I ain't never had no type of money like that.

I don't know how it's gonna be, but it definitely something to keep pushing with.

- He was making six digits as a freshman, discussed it with his mom and said, you know what?

I'm gonna give this a world.

- She kinda seen my vision a little bit and just believed in me.

She always told me to believe in myself, and that's why I wanted to do it.

I'd be just like, I just wanna try it out.

I could always go back to school If had to.

That's when I started to make the hoodies myself.

I bought my own heat press, my Cricut.

I didn't even have over a thousand-dollar set up.

And about two months in, I was really locked in.

I wouldn't leave the house or anything.

I'm like, I just dropped outta school.

So I really gotta give my life to this nail.

Every day I would send my stuff to different rappers on Instagram.

The first time Toosii wore my hoodie, the video got over 20 million views.

♪ That baby fine like Madonna ♪ ♪ I buy her Gucci and Prada ♪ - Since he wore it so much, I got a lot of content and I really pushed it heavy, like advertisements on Instagram and Facebook.

And that really helped me take it to the next level.

(upbeat music) (spray can fizzing) We have our own method to spray paint.

I'll call it freestyle painting 'cause that's really what it is.

(spray can rattles) I feel like the abstract and just the colors make everyone love the colors and was bringing it out so much.

(upbeat music) - Larry from Archive Society is a very talented fashion designer.

- I'm 24 years old.

My business is Archives Society Studios, and I offer clothing branding, I offer clothing design and also I make clothes as well.

I went to engineering in science, and the people that I met from there that are at Kreate Hub are Allsides Designs, Amyronn and his team.

And we kinda locked in new ideas on ash trays, key chains, these mock ups we have in front of me.

(upbeat music) Right now, you're in Allsides Designs, the studio.

This is our office space.

We're a group of individuals that create and dream as much as possible and make people's reality come to life through 3D printing, graphic design, website creation and website design, multimedia.

- We've all known each other for most of our lives.

As we got older, yeah, I went into computers heavy, and learned how to code and create things like that.

Amyronn often learned the business side of everything, now we're just putting all that together, bringing our other friends in and just combining everything to make something new and great and ahead of the time.

- 3D printing is very essential for our type of business because it allows us to fabricate our products at a significantly lower price.

And because we design our own products in the computer, this is the new way to get your hands in it and get your work out.

This is for one of the brands that's in our building.

One of our friends, Ron.

He wanted us to make a ash tray.

We designed this intentionally to be four inches by two and a half.

From there, we're able to scale it to any size we want.

(upbeat music) Yeah, I have Devan Curtis who's behind our music programs, especially what we doing with the kids at Carver High school.

♪ Talk to me better talk ♪ ♪ I pray my blessings ♪ - This is the artist that we're developing.

This is one of his newest videos that came out from a project we dropped in January.

That's where me and Allsides Designs kinda go hand to hand.

We help artists create their brand, create their name, create their music, create their wave to be able to get to the next step.

♪ You gotta shop better take that.

♪ ♪ I'm not with the beef ain't no shake shack ♪ ♪ If I don't got away I'ma make that ♪ - So this is our office and this is our music studio.

We're gonna go check out the arts studio to see what Amoya is working on.

♪ Blessings gon' fall right ♪ - My name is Amoya and I am a senior at Carver.

Carver E&S is a engineering and science school.

I am the head of the social media marketing and creatives team, and I'm also a part of the merch crew.

Amyronn has taught me the 3D printer, how to create a stencil.

And we've created our Carver Records logo, and he taught me how to airbrush as well.

(gentle music) - I graduated from Carver 2015.

We had the experience to be able to go show the students how to do it on their own.

We're just giving them real word experience in the music world.

So that's what Carver Records is.

All the students evolve to have a certain role in the music label itself.

So the student that you you met today, she's a part of more of the marketing side.

- People spread love through music.

Music brings happiness.

And that's why I specifically wanted to be in Carver Records because I can't sing and I can't play an instrument, but being a part of the merch team and the social media marketing team and creatives, it's like I'm leaving my mark.

(gentle music) (upbeat music) - Sir.

- Yeah, so the beat was produced by two seniors.

And I believe the artist is a senior too.

This is one song that plans to be on the EP that was totally done by the students.

- Essentially, we'll be trying to spread to have a record label in every school in the Philadelphia School District, to be able to leverage this type of channel to the larger labels and be able to create something for the kids to use, to get them to the next level of their music careers if they choose to go down that path.

- We're hoping that Carver Record label goes from a club to a program.

We don't want it to be an extracurricular activity, for example, we just want to be a part of the school day.

What I love about the alumni contributing to Carver Records is that they have given us creative freedom.

So it's good to have like a little family like our big brothers here that helps us.

(upbeat music) (bright upbeat music) - We have of spaces of all sizes.

We have nice, small ones where one person can work alone in your own little studio, or nice size where you can have a client.

And even larger where people share studios.

(people chattering) This is an incubator.

It's kind of close quarters, but you're next to your neighbors.

Similar to like living in a city.

So people share ideas, they talk to each other, and that's what's created the community.

And we found that the entrepreneurs are the ones who can afford it because they're doing business.

(upbeat music) - So this is like the New Money logo.

I felt like was a definition in new wealth for urban community.

Like the noodles is a good representation to coming from the bottom and making your way up.

And that's basically what Nouvelle Richesse and New Wealth is.

Anybody that comes from the bottom and makes their way up to the top.

And with the money trap, I like to say like, don't fall for the trap.

(spray can rattles) Money isn't everything with new wealth.

That's what basically the Nouvelle Richesse represents.

- A lot of people that come here, they needed that one opportunity.

These guys that are here, the vision that they have, and to get that chance to be in here, I personally believe within the next few years, will probably be millionaires.

(camera shutters) - [Ivy] We have a lot of health and beauty here.

(camera shutters) These young people are serving their communities with their needs for hair, for homemade products, lashes and wig making.

It's very specialized.

These women are busy, busy, busy with clients in and out all day.

- That's my June schedule.

I be booked all the time.

I come to work six days a week, between three to six clients a day.

So I may start as early as 9:30, and the latest I ever got off was 2:00 AM.

- I joined Kreate Hub January of 2021.

This is my first beauty studio.

I've been doing makeup for two years.

I've established my business March 12th of 2019 while I was a freshman in college.

- My specialty is portraits, black and gray realism.

I was outta high school.

I didn't know what I wanted to do next.

I was always good at art, but around that time, it was like the starving artist thing.

So I figured this was a way to make money off of my art.

And then I just started doing it more and more and got better and better, and then I just stuck with it.

- I learned a lot of stuff on my own, just watching other photographers do what they do.

This is my first studio.

So I got my whole space now, everybody here is friendly.

We have fun here.

It's everything that you need in one building.

- My passion for makeup started from when I seen my very first drag queen.

I was so amazed that makeup could turn a whole man into a beautiful woman.

So I felt like if I could do that with makeup on a actual woman, it was just everything for me.

And growing up, I wasn't really girly.

So makeup was my outlet for my girly side.

- Hi, Jasmine.

(knocks door) Hi, I'm coming to visit.

How are you settling in?

- I just had a grand opening.

So these are quite a few products that I have in stock.

We have everything from body oils, facial serums, and onsite candle making.

You can come in, choose your scent, choose your vessel.

- Wow.

- And then I'll make it and you can pick it up at a later day.

- Wow, that sounds great.

- I make everything myself, I even dry out the herbs.

So I dry out botanicals, flowers to kinda infuse a different toxin reliever 'cause I wanted to figure out how to properly detox without it being food-related.

So that's how I started my business quite a few years ago.

- Wow, that's great.

- Thank you.

♪ All the ladies if you feel me ♪ ♪ Help me sing it out ♪ (upbeat music) - So many characters in the building, that's what's really fun.

But Jade is a great one, she's 19 years old.

She is running a incredibly successful photography business.

People get their pictures done for whatever reason, their birthday, their college graduation.

They just wanna feel pretty.

It's been a crazy ride with COVID.

They just wanna do something nice for themselves.

And they book a photography shoot and have a fun time.

The energy in her studio is always lit.

It's really fun up there all the time.

♪ Na na na diver is a female version of a hustla ♪ ♪ Of a hustla ♪ - I like taking pictures and getting dressed myself.

So doing photo shoots was just like me picturing of what I would like on myself or anybody to look good.

Me and my sister, Nomar, we have a model come in and I got music going.

We listen to a lot of Nick Minaj.

We listen to Beyonce, basically women who empower theirselves.

♪ Clap for the heavyweight champ me ♪ ♪ But I couldn't do it all alone we.

♪ I love everything pink and girly, this is just really gonna incorporate my whole vibe that you're gonna get coming into the dream house experience.

My client, her name is Milan, and her name on Instagram is @travelto-_milan.

She really knows what to do.

So we're gonna be doing a mean girl theme shoot.

She's gonna be like Regina George.

♪ Put your drinks up ♪ ♪ It's a celebration every time we link up ♪ ♪ We done did everything they can think of.

♪ Ooh, well, now look at me, yes.

The new thing there is like content is currency.

The picture will really pull somebody in to do something with you.

♪ 'Cause in this moment I just feel so alive alive ♪ It takes two.

So they gotta give me something and I can give them something.

♪ I just know I'm alive and I just know I'm alive ♪ - I'm surprised and excited by how fun this has been.

- We found the Kreate Hub and it was just kinda like a perfect fit for us.

It was new, we were new, they're willing to work with us.

And then we kinda put all that together and just started bringing people in and showing 'em what we had and then trying to bring people on board, and it's just, it's been working out pretty well, I think.

And we just keep moving forward every day.

- I feel super lucky to curate this building and manage and take care of all the people here and their needs.

- There's a bunch of positive energy, productive people.

- People that we can network with.

'Cause that's, your network equals your net worth.

- You can never stop learning when there's so much going on around you.

- It's something in here that we feel great about, 'cause if I don't know how to do it, I could go next door and knock on his door.

He probably know how to do it.

- It's very convenient for my clients to come down here and just walk straight upstairs and have a photo shoot or walk across the hall and buy clothing.

This building's like a one-stop shop.

- It's been a wild ride with COVID.

We started during COVID.

- When the pandemic came and my original job had closed, I just did it full time.

I was doing it inside of my home first.

- After the pandemic, I think my life has come into a full circle of living in my purpose and actually doing exactly what I'm supposed to do.

I pray that the studio is just the beginning, and I get a storefront and just keep on growing.

- I reached out to either for a studio here and the space, the quietness, it's just a peace of mind away from home.

(chuckles) - This is a really welcoming environment.

And for it to be my first studio building, I feel like I picked the best one.

- So if everybody's given a chance, you never know where you might be.

A lot of these people aren't bad people.

They just in a bad situation and got caught up doing the wrong thing.

I'm happy I'm here, I'm happy I was given the opportunity, and hopefully me sharing my information, give somebody else hope to say, listen, if they can do it, I can do it too.

(upbeat music) - [Ivy] Every person in this building has Philly in them, that kind of underdog hungry drive.

And I think that's what makes this location a fun, gritty, underrated place.

We've got killer talent in here, that is proving it.

They don't need to prove it.

They're just doing it, they're living it.

(upbeat music) (truck engine revving) - In today's profile, Producer Monica Rogozinski talks with Cassandra Green, a beloved community leader and co-founder of the Mill Creek Community Partnership.

Cass is gonna tell us how initiatives like hers bridge resource gaps in the city using creative strategies and personal connections.

- I'm so glad you could come here to the Kreate Hub.

- Oh, thank you so much for having us.

We're excited to be here today.

- So tell me about the art bus.

- It is our mobile art classroom.

We believe that we can take art out to the community with this vehicle.

And it actually is a retrofitted airport shuttle bus.

(upbeat music) Community engagement is what the center of Mill Creek Community Partnership is.

And so this is our way of being innovative and being non-traditional in community engagement, using the arts.

- That's wonderful.

- So the art bus actually was gifted to us by the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

And up until last Friday, it actually was all white.

And then on Friday, we had three community artists come together to beautify it so that it would be not only a place where people meet to do art and engage, but it would be like a traveling art exhibit.

It goes to Kensington, throughout the city, the Northeast, and West Philadelphia.

And what we do is bring art to the community.

- Can we take a look inside?

- Yes, we would love you to take a tour.

I'll introduce you to Jerry Puryear, and he will give you a tour where all the magic happens.

(upbeat music) - All right, welcome to the FATOE, Fine Art Through Our Eyes's Art Bus.

We host art workshops designed to inspire, give a platform for the individual to have their own voice, to know that their voice matters and that they matter.

We partner with a lot of organizations.

We have materials, paper, pencils and things that we get donated.

And we have plenty of books that we give out for free as well as stuff that we purchase on our own.

We know that the human mind is an expanding mind.

And we like to capitalize on that.

(upbeat music) - [Cass] I was hired for the position here at NKCDC based on my experience in the work I had done in West Philly with the arts and community engagement.

- So can you talk a little bit about your background in the arts and how that led you to do community work?

- I actually attended Fashion Institute of Technology.

So my dream was to be a famous.

Of course, fashion designer or the next Georgia O'Keeffe.

And then I eventually moved to Philadelphia with my two daughters and I was fortunate enough to work at University of Pennsylvania.

I was the business and building administrator at ICA, and I worked there for 17 years and that was my dream job.

And then I met this amazing mentor.

His name was Reverend Curtis Will in Wallington, and I was exposed to something called community engagement and community development.

He asked me to start this nonprofit, which is Mill Creek Community Partnership.

And how could I integrate being an artist, and also the work that I was doing at Institute of Contemporary Art into the community.

That was my journey and how I got involved in community development and community engagement and aligning those two things together.

(upbeat music) - I met Ms. Cass in 2015 when community-based crime reduction as a community connector.

And we did surveys on target areas.

During the years, working with Ms. Cass, I've also took a course called community health work.

I am now a certified health care worker.

And I do outreach service with addiction, because I am recovering it for 30 years.

And I'm also an executive director now of my own non-profit organization, which is called By Faith, Health and Healing.

And is dealing with women who have lost their children to gun violence, suicide, loss comes in so many different ways.

(upbeat music) - What I was made aware of and what I've learned over the years is some of the issues in the deep-rooted areas that exist with homelessness, sheltered populations, addiction and disinvestment in the people that live and reside in the community, has existed for 30 to 40 years.

But yet and still, the residents who live, work and thrive here and are also being traumatized at the same time.

How they still have this powerful sense of hope and possibility.

Would you try your pink in your white?

I do approach everything like it's a canvas or a painting.

I think it's gonna be really nice.

I have different elements or I'm working on a mixed media piece or it's a tapestry.

I remember when I first started working here, I kept asking the leadership team, what do you all want?

Do you want a box with a beautiful red bow on it when we finish this project, or are you interested in a masterpiece?

- So give some examples of how you create that masterpiece.

- One of those really beautiful projects we did was an exhibition, and it was called From Kensington With love.

(upbeat music) We went to six different locations, and we did popup workshops with three artists, Ken McFarlane, who is a photographer, Katsi Miranda-Lozanda, she's a Latino female artist, and then Jerry Adam Puryear, who works with Fine Art Through Our Eyes.

We did four exhibitions, that was exciting.

And I have to say that was a masterpiece.

(upbeat music) You ever been to a beach?

So beach is like a landscape too.

I believe in the team that I work with.

We believe that outreach is taking it to people.

By having a bus, a mobile unit allows us to take it to the people on a grassroots intimate level, and that's what we're able to do.

So we're able to go to schools, we're able to go to nursing homes and do popups.

During COVID, we were able to really thrive, pop up in places and also give away a lot of fun-on-the-go art packs, it was really valuable then.

You have economic investment into the communities through places like Kreate Hub, which is really focusing on young entrepreneurs.

So we need that, right?

Because if we don't, we will lose our talent to other places.

So we have to have amenities for them so that we can attract them and build commerce, innovation and industry in Philadelphia for our talent, so that we can thrive collectively, so that they then can live in these luxury apartments that are being built all around us, in our communities.

So I think that's really critical to the work that Kreate Hub and other folks who are doing incubators and innovation work around economic development.

- Are we gonna hang these up when we get home?

- I have noticed that people can kinda get discouraged.

And seeing beauty in even broken places, gives people a sense of hope and want to continue to move forward.

It's very spiritual and full of possibilities.

(bright upbeat music) (bright music) - If you're not already on your phone, I hope this episodes's inspired you to check out these projects on social media.

I'm your host, Anne Ishii, and I'll see you on the next "Movers and Makers".

(bright music) - [Announcer] Major funding for this program was provided by.