Johnae Johnae Spain is a 22-year-old college graduate, and her experience with Central Community House has truly come full circle. Her journey with Central started at age 6, when her grandmother enrolled her older siblings in TRANSIT ARTS hip-hop classes and she ended up joining in. At this time, her grandma was just adjusting to taking care of her and her 6 siblings after the loss of their mother. Looking back, she talked about how there were times when they would struggle financially, and sometimes would have to miss out on the extracurricular activities going on because of it. At one point during programming, TRANSIT ARTS team members noticed that her family hadn’t been there in two weeks. They reached out to her grandma to ask what they could do to help keep the kids involved. They provided gas cards to help with transportation, and were so helpful. Johnae stated that “at the time, I didn’t realize the importance of this and thinking about it now brings tears to my eyes.” To her, “this community is literally family.” Johnae is now working as an Americorps VISTA for TRANSIT ARTS after receiving her Bachelor’s degree from The Ohio State University. She stated, “You know, everyone always says, ‘I want to give back to the community,’ but once the opportunity to work for Central as a VISTA was presented to me, I thought this was too good to be true. This allowed me to be able to give back to MY community, in the most literal sense.”
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