‘Applause is Empowering’ and Transformational for Young People

Fernando Pullum was always told he’d end up in prison. But the trumpet player, raised by his great-grandmother, discovered music and his life took an entirely different path.

“Growing up on the West Side of Chicago, I just saw the worst of the worst,” he remembers. Pullum stumbled across his school’s band, and his teacher handed him a trumpet. He never looked back, getting two college scholarships and eventually moving to Los Angeles.

It’s with that mindset that he created the Fernando Pullum Community Arts Center in South Los Angeles, to allow students to tap into their performing arts interests offering a wide range of classes from drama to filmmaking to music.

“Arts programs are one of the only things keeping kids in school, but they’re being cut,” Pullum says. “I wanted to give kids the opportunity that I didn’t get. I left teaching and opened the center.”

The former music teacher spent 25 years in the Los Angeles Unified School District, where he led a wildly successful program and was named a California Teacher of the Year. 

The Pullum Center runs 110 performing arts classes a year and has helped more than 5,000 young people since it was launched in 2012. Nearly all of the students who stick with the program graduate high school. Six of its educators are former students, a testament to the nonprofit’s enduring pull on the youngsters it serves.

 A part of the draw is the chance to take advantage of L.A.’s star scene, and perform on stage with famous musicians. In the past two years, one of the center’s students sang the national anthem for the U.S. Tennis Open, another performed on The Voice, the choir recorded with John Legend, and the Jazz Band performed at the Billboard Music Awards. The center estimates its performances reached in excess of 12 million people between 2019 and 2020 alone.

“Applause is really empowering” Pullum says. “It’s the strongest motivator you could possibly have. I want to use that to raise kids’ self esteem. Because if they know their value, they aren’t going to join gangs.”

Central to Fernando’s work is building young people’s life skills: courage to perform publicly, self-confidence, accountability, and time-keeping, so they can be used outside of the arts.

“I’m using the arts to save lives,” he says. “I just want to make sure all kids get a chance.”