Arts, but make the community your canvas.
That’s exactly what Tarnika Love-Anderson and the Youth Excel in Arts Foundation (YEA) are doing in Memphis, Tennessee.
With support from a $1,000 Kindness Grant, YEA is launching Art of Kindness – a youth-led initiative that turns creativity into community action. Through murals, performances, and care packages filled with handwritten art, middle and high school students are learning to use their talents to uplift underserved neighborhoods across Memphis.
The program blends leadership training with artistic collaboration, helping youth explore how compassion and creativity can coexist in powerful ways. Through a series of workshops on empathy, teamwork, and service, these students will design and lead their own kindness projects, from painting neglected spaces, to performing dance and spoken word pieces that raise awareness around mental health, to bringing music and art into shelters and senior centers. Each act is a hands-on lesson in what it means to lead with both skill and heart.
For Tarnika, this work is deeply personal. Her passion for mentorship and community service was inspired by her grandmother’s lifelong example of giving back and strengthened by the loss of her father to gun violence. Those experiences shaped her belief that kindness, art, and purpose can be healing forces, especially for young people navigating adversity.
As Tarnika shared in her application,
“I’ve seen kids who were shy or struggling become leaders when given a paintbrush, a microphone, or just someone who listens. That transformation is what drives me.”
Through Art of Kindness, Tarnika is planting the seeds for that same transformation in others, creating opportunities for youth to feel seen, supported, and capable of creating change.
At the TDB Family Foundation, we’re proud to support projects that Amplify Voices of Youth and Build Thriving Communities, and Art of Kindness embodies both. It empowers young people to lead with purpose while transforming overlooked spaces into sources of beauty, connection, and hope.
This project is more than an art program. It’s a blueprint for how kindness can multiply. One brushstroke, one song, or one heartfelt note can spark connection and remind people that they matter.
We can’t wait to see these creative young people bring their vision to life across Memphis.
➡️ Learn more about the Youth Excel in Arts Foundation on Facebook
Photos Courtesy of YEA