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Location Description Giv en limited access to transportation for many justice-inv olv ed <br />youth, Soteria will trav el to youth's homes and communities to make <br />programming accessible. Youth liv e throughout Orange County, <br />often coming from rural communities such as Rougemont and <br />Mebane. Our main space, Present Day on Main, in Carrboro, NC is <br />also a meeting location to inspire youth by the art that exists in the <br />land (we are thankful to the Orange County Arts Commission for <br />making much of this artwork possible). <br />Meetings with court staff will likely take place in the courthouses and <br />offices in Hillsborough, NC. <br />Some of the work and meeting times may take place v irtually to offset <br />transportation time and costs. <br />Artist Description Soteria Shepperson, known as “I AM SOTERIA”, is a first generation <br />college graduate, graduating from George Mason Univ ersity. She is a <br />woman of color who identifies as Espresso. She finds herself pav ing <br />lanes in concrete, identifying as an artiv ist (art + activ ist), a culture <br />shifter and sustainer. Shepperson anticipated basketball to be her <br />ticket out , but began sustaining physical injuries in high school that <br />ended her career. Poetry became a therapeutic tool that she used to <br />get out of hardships, connecting early on with the legacies of <br />influencers such as Maya Angelou, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and <br />Nikki Giov anni. <br />Her work centers purpose, not in what one is able to do, but in who <br />one was born to become. She challenges stereotypes of colorism, <br />sexism, racism, and stigmas of criminality that she witnessed in her <br />life and the through the experiences that hav e be liv ed by others, <br />inv iting herself and others to be the heroes they’v e been waiting for. <br />Her recent work encourages courage to mov e from a place of <br />outraged witnessing to courageous participation in dismantling <br />unjust systems. <br />She uses spoken word, music and printed work to engage audiences <br />using her platform to elev ate marginalized v oices and perspectiv es <br />through her "I AM SOTERIA & Friends" ev ents, also offering artists <br />compensation, resources and coaching serv ices as part of this work. <br />In addition, she and Sophie Suberman co-own Present Day on Main, a <br />local coffee shop and community space in Carrboro, NC that infuses <br />social justice, equity and hope by div ersifying their customer base, <br />being intentional about using art to inv ite community and justice <br />while making sure things like coffee and tea are serv ed. They work to <br />transform narrativ es renaming the business in January of 2021 to <br />Present Day on Main in hopes we all learn that the past can help us <br />LIVE in the Present. They also created a drink called the " Good <br />Karen" to celebrate the white women who truly believ e in equity and <br />justice. This drink was named to also honor their assistant manager's <br />mom, whose name is Karen, for her role in equity and justice. In <br />addition, they were awarded the Pauli Murray Award in 2021 by the <br />DocuSign Envelope ID: 15A660EC-5B01-4664-A912-162A942EEE16