entertainment designer and artist
Project
Young at Art's 17th Annual Recycled Fashion Show
From October 2023 to April 2024, Elena served as the art instructor at Pace Center for Girls. During this time, she facilitated the participation of Pace students in Young at Art Museum's Recycled Fashion Show. The students created designs based on endangered wildlife in South Florida. They learned to sketch for fashion, pattern, sew, and construct their own garments. The dresses were required to be 75% recycled material, encouraging creative solutions. Students then modeled their designs and spoke onstage about them. One design won People's Choice.
About Pace Center for Girls
Pace provides girls and young women an opportunity for a better future through education, counseling, training, and advocacy.
For more than thirty-five years, Pace Center for Girls has been transforming the lives of girls and young women. Founded in 1985 by Vicki Burke, the first Pace Center launched with ten girls in Jacksonville, Florida. Vicki had an idea, rooted in facts, that girls were entering the juvenile justice system as a response to delinquent behavior often caused by trauma. Pace has successfully grown to annually serve more than 3,000 girls in 23 locations in Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina.
Through a successful and proven evidence-based model, focused on the development of critical life, health, and academic skills, Pace has changed the life trajectory of more than 40,000 girls and is recognized as one of the nation’s leading advocates for girls in need.