{"id":2032,"date":"2016-08-10T14:01:17","date_gmt":"2016-08-10T14:01:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thedoublescoop2.com\/?p=2032"},"modified":"2016-08-10T14:01:17","modified_gmt":"2016-08-10T14:01:17","slug":"speak-life-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thedoublescoop2.com\/dev\/speak-life-tour\/","title":{"rendered":"SPEAK LIFE TOUR"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/thedoublescoop2.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/speak-final.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-2037\" src=\"http:\/\/thedoublescoop2.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/speak-final-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"speak final\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Author: Amy Nicole<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Last weekend I had the opportunity to attend the \u201cSpeak Life Tour\u201d in Charlotte, North Carolina. \u00a0Speak Life is a performing\/visual arts tour consisting of youth and young adults. In order to be selected for the tour participants must undergo an audition process. \u00a0The tour was founded in 2013 by Catherine Trotter, who is also the founder of the non-profit organizations \u201cHouse of New Beginnings\u201d and \u201cNew Beginnings Youth Academy\u201d. \u00a0Both programs are geared towards the professional development of young people.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Catherine came up with the idea for the tour while working with youth under her organization House of New Beginnings; the umbrella organization for the Speak Life Tour. \u00a0After youth in the program complained about not having an open mic platform for teens Catherine started having open mic mixers for youth in the Baltimore area which eventually led to the creation of the tour. The tour originated in Baltimore and gradually expanded to other states such as DC, Maryland, New York, Philadelphia, and Atlanta. It will soon include Florida, Dallas, Texas, and Virginia Beach.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><b>Founder: Catherine Trotter<\/b><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/thedoublescoop2.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/catherine-tro.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-2036\" src=\"http:\/\/thedoublescoop2.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/catherine-tro-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"catherine tro\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Attending the Speak Life Tour was an amazing experience. Some of the performers included dancers, singers, poets, visual artists and rappers. In addition to youth being involved on the tour there were also local members of the Charlotte community who were included. \u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Joan Randall who is the founder of \u00a0<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/joantrandall.com\/about\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Victorious You<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, (an organization created to help female victims of domestic abuse) gave a presentation to attendees. Also author and motivational speaker Eddie Love gave \u00a0advice about overcoming adversity and pursuing your dreams.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/thedoublescoop2.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/eddie-love.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-2038 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/thedoublescoop2.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/eddie-love-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"eddie love\" width=\"288\" height=\"192\" \/><\/a>\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/thedoublescoop2.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/sl.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-2039\" src=\"http:\/\/thedoublescoop2.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/sl-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"sl\" width=\"275\" height=\"183\" \/><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/thedoublescoop2.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/sl2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-2040\" src=\"http:\/\/thedoublescoop2.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/sl2-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"sl2\" width=\"272\" height=\"181\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/thedoublescoop2.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/sl3.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-2041\" src=\"http:\/\/thedoublescoop2.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/sl3-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"sl3\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Speak Life Tour is an amazing organization, and I think it is a very creative and positive platform for youth to express themselves. With all the turmoil taking place in society today young people need an outlet to shield them from the negativity. \u00a0If you would like to support the Speak Life Tour you can make a donation <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/squareup.com\/store\/house-of-new-beginnings-inc\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">here<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Check out my interview with Catherine and see footage of the show below.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"840\" height=\"473\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7MGyBuEu3j8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Author: Amy Nicole Last weekend I had the opportunity to attend the \u201cSpeak Life Tour\u201d in Charlotte, North Carolina. \u00a0Speak Life is a performing\/visual arts tour consisting of youth and young adults. In order to be selected for the tour participants must undergo an audition process. \u00a0The tour was founded in 2013 by Catherine Trotter, &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/thedoublescoop2.com\/dev\/speak-life-tour\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;SPEAK LIFE TOUR&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2037,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[80,125,146,147,176,265,323,325,342,349,351,355,385,390,438,454,456,471,495,519],"class_list":["post-2032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","tag-artists","tag-bloggers","tag-charlotte","tag-charlotte-north-carolina","tag-dancers","tag-inspiration","tag-media","tag-media-coverage","tag-motivation","tag-music","tag-music-lovers","tag-musicians","tag-performing-arts","tag-poets","tag-singers","tag-speak-life-tour","tag-spoken-word","tag-the-double-scoop","tag-twins","tag-youth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thedoublescoop2.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thedoublescoop2.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thedoublescoop2.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thedoublescoop2.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thedoublescoop2.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/thedoublescoop2.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2032\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thedoublescoop2.com\/dev\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thedoublescoop2.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thedoublescoop2.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thedoublescoop2.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}