BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT) — A nonprofit dance studio has opened its doors to serve the west side of Birmingham. LightHouse Studios Event Center is a brick-and-mortar location in the Crossplex District to maintain a space where kids can express themselves and excel.

Rodney Agee and Darrick Bradford founded the nonprofit MPACT, Inc. Manifesting Prosperous Avenues for Children’s Talents in 2019 and were able to open the physical studio this summer.

“We noticed how Birmingham is plagued with a lot of homicides, a lot of violence, so we wanted a safe space so that kids could excel, they can get away from the dangers and we can really fine tune their craft and talents,” Agee said.

Bradford said having the facility that opened in July has helped them grow their reach and numbers.

“It’s made it a much easier process,” Bradford said. “The impact that we’ve been able to have by having the actual physical location has been a God send.”

Agee and Bradford said this is the perfect time to spotlight these girls because some of the clothing they have made debuted in the Magic City Classic Parade Saturday.

“Dance is very expensive as any extracurricular activity is,” Bradford said. “With our nonprofit we try to make the program as free as possible for the children so anything from hair, makeup, clothing we do it all.”

Both Agee and Bradford grew up in a home without a father figure in their lives. They said that they strive to provide this structure for all of the dancers who go through their program.

“Our goal is to save these kids, to be that liaison for them for if they want to dance on the collegiate level or if they want to dance professionally because when I grew up dance and extracurricular activities were really pushed in schools and we’re starting to notice in grade school they’re missing that,” Agee said. “We want to feed that gap to save these kids.”

LightHouse Studios and Event Center is located at 2003 Bessemer Rd.

Captain Nalia Hill, 18, and Co-Captain Trinty Ham, 10, danced live on the CBS 42 Morning News Sunday. You can watch their performance in the video above.

Learn more about MPACT here.

If you’re interested in connecting your children to the program, contact mpactsirenz@gmail.com.