After receiving a scholarship at age 15 that allowed her to blossom as an artist, Christina DePaul now works to offer 150  young artists every year the opportunity to grow their talent in her role as president and CEO of YoungArts, a program of the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts.
The Miami-based organization supports talented students around the country in nine disciplines, including dance, theater, visual arts, jazz and classic instrumental music, to benefit from programs and scholarships to help them pursue their artistic dreams. This year, the non-profit started a regional program known as YoungArts Miami.
“It’s a program where not only we’ll be working with students, but we’ll also be working with teachers and parents of these creative kids,” Ms. DePaul explained. “And we’ll be holding workshops and lots of professional practices of how to become a professional artist because all the students that come to us that is ultimately their goal.”
Ms. DePaul turned her career from artist to administrator to rescue struggling art programs, turning them around into well-endowed departments.
“…I think my success as an administrator always had to do with the fact that I was an artist,” she said. “Also when you go to art school, people don’t realize this, when you go to arts school you are trained to be a creative thinker. You are a problem solver.”
Today, Ms. DePaul’s focus is to increase the arts organization’s exposure and raise more funds to allow more of the 6,000 students who apply to the program each year get a shot at reaching their artistic potential. 
“The arts are not supported enough in this country and I think the ones of us who are really believers have got to rally and keep it going,” she said.
Ms. DePaul discussed her current efforts and long-term plans to take YoungArts to the next level in an interview with Miami Today reporter Yudislaidy Fernandez at the organization’s Brickell offices.