PORTSMOUTH, Va. (WAVY) – Laniqua Taylor was born and raised in Portsmouth. She is known to most people as “Queen.”
Taylor has plans to take back the community by making sure children have the opportunity to live out their dreams in a safe place. To understand her mission, you have to first learn about her business. It’s called For the People.
Taylor says For the People began as a record Label in 2016 in Portsmouth. As her business grew, she recognized the need for a non-profit to help children in low-income communities. So, she began a non-profit called For the Youth.
“For the Youth was supposed to be just like an after-school program. It matured into a summer camp, and then it matured into a six-week curriculum. We teach audio engineering, producing music, writing music, in front of the camera, behind the camera. I teach youth how to be CEOs like me or how to be a producer, the videographer, the photographer. How to get on stage and perform, self-confidence, safe space because the record label offered the adults a place to channel themselves and be free, but I noticed that the children really needed a recreation facility structure that is not just come in and run free,” said Taylor.
Keeping children busy with their passions, feeling love, feeling support are all so important Taylor. She believes all of those things will help reduce the local crime rate and give children a brighter future.
“Crime is high because the youth have nothing to do, and they say it. ‘We have nowhere to go. We have nothing to do.’ So, I wanted to create this space specifically for them to have hope again. Even as a child you can lose hope. You can be around a lot of adults that have no dreams, and because they have no dreams, they cannot help you with your dream. So, this here is my dream that you can dream in. So, you might have a podcast that you want to present to the world, but you have no space to do it. Well, I created that space for you.”
Taylor says For the People helps fund For the Youth.
“Everything that’s done in here goes directly towards what we do in the community for free, or little to no cost, for the community.”
Even with funding from her business, she could still use your support to help raise money for For the Youth. That’s why this Sunday, January 14th, you can attend a For the Youth Fundraiser! It begins at 3:00 p.m. at Gather Norfolk and ends at 7:30 p.m. Food and beverages will be provided as well as entertainment. To purchase tickets, click here.
Meanwhile, Taylor says you can donate any time by using this QR Code:
“We take monetary donations all year round, and then I also have it open for hygiene, because we do give away hygiene bags when we feed the people at our events, but my goal is to have them here at all the times. So, if people had deodorant, pads, toothbrush, toothpaste, a blanket, anything that you could think of in a hard time that you would possibly need donate it because people need those things, and my non-profit, that’s what we want to do. We want to make sure that we’re feeding the needs of the community.”