By Taylor Sanchez
NASHVILLE, TN — In “Music City” the arts are everywhere you look. From Music Row to Jefferson Street the creativity of the Nashville community is on showcase. Creative Girls Rock (CGR), founded October 17, 2017, helps to empower young women to embrace their creativity.
Charmin Bates, founder and Executive Director of CGR notes “CGR offers free programming, the CGR Master Class, within the Nashville community, which extends globally to involve participants around, as a platform for creative expression, arts and crafts, artistic design, visual arts and empowerment workshops.” The organization is focused on empowering young women of low-to-moderate incomes both locally and globally in the creative arts.
Arts education in the Nashville Public Schools and throughout the state is sorely inadequate. Bates says the state only requires one fine arts credit for high school graduation which can be waived by the Tennessee Department of Education. Fine arts are not a requirement in elementary and middle school. Bates hopes to change this inadequacy.
Around town, their impact is hard to miss. The organization has created seven murals utilizing 160 participants of all ages. You can see these murals at Slim and Husky’s Nashville, Tennessee State University, Nashville Public Library: Bordeaux, Downtown, and Madison branches, Cheekwood Botanical Garden, and Napier Elementary School. The organization is bringing the creativity of the North Nashville community to the entire city.
Desiring to continue to give back to the North Nashville community, the organization hopes to open a facility in the neighborhood which according to Bates will “provide a safe space for youth and adults that will provide programming tailored to our four (4) key initiatives: creative arts, mental health and wellness, women empowerment and youth development.
In 2022, the organization provided 10,000 backpacks filled with school and art supplies to the Great Nashville Community Giveback Initiative. This year, August 5, 2023, the organization will host their 4th annual Back to School Bash at Napier Elementary School from 12:00-4:00 pm. They will once again hand out free backpacks and other needed supplies to the community.
The biggest event of their calendar is coming up on Friday, November 10, 2023. The Creative Girls Rock 4th Annual Charity Sneaker Ball is “an annual black-tie fundraiser event established in 2019” to support the organization. She further notes that “the most anticipated aspect of the CGR Charity Sneaker Ball is seeing how guests creatively pair fancy black-tie attire with their “flyest” kicks (sneakers). If you would like to find out more about this event, you can visit www.sneakerball4charity.com.
If you would like to find out more about CGS and their work you can visit https://www.creativegirlsrock.org.