When Kids in the Spotlight CEO Tige Charity was laid off from a job in 2009, she began to think seriously about what she wanted to do with her life.  

“At that same time, my church was doing a series called Discover God’s Dream for Your Life. And I was kind of rebelling against that, because I’d read Rick Warren’s book, The Purpose Driven Life. I graduated from Oral Roberts University. I’ve heard every message on purpose that you could think of, so I was like, ‘Yep, not interested. I need a job.’ And so one night, I had what I call a temper tantrum with God,” Charity tells MovieMaker. 

“I was like, ‘Okay, God, if there’s this thing called purpose, if there’s something that you need me to do, I need you to speak, because I’m really at the end of myself. Like, I just am depleted. I have nothing left to give,’” she said.  

Her mind wandered back to an experience she’d had in 2005 when she visited a Los Angeles group home for foster children with her husband, actor Antonio D. Charity. 

“He joined a theater group, and the theater group was teaching an acting class at a group home on a Saturday, and he invited me to join them. It was my first time ever being up close and personal with kids in foster care. This was an all-girls group home at the time, and the experience just cracked my heart wide open,” Charity recalls. “It really had me thinking, ‘What can I do to give back?’” 

With a lot of time on her hands and a strong desire to make a difference, Charity hatched a plan. 

“That night, I felt like after I’d finished snottin’ and cryin’ that God spoke to me and reminded me of those girls that I had met at the group home. He gave me the vision: He said, ‘Create a platform for kids to be seen, heard, validated and celebrated. Teach them the art of filmmaking.’” 

The result was Kids in the Spotlight (KITS), a Van Nuys, California-based non-profit organization that opens up a pathway for kids in the Los Angeles foster care system to tell their stories on screen. Charity is the CEO. 

About Kids in the Spotlight

KITS’ core 10-week program, Script-to-Screen, welcomes any Los Angeles-based young people between the ages of 12 and 24 who have been involved in the foster care system. 

“Our kids basically learn to write, cast, and star in their own short films, telling their stories their way. The program culminates in what we call the Annual Kids Film Awards, which is our version of the Academy Awards, where we screen their films, but we go beyond just a screening. It’s a real awards celebration, where we dress them and send limousines to pick them up to bring them to a studio like Paramount and have media and celebrities on the carpet with them getting prepared in celebration of their big day,” Charity says. 

The program involves meeting for four hours a week, during which time the kids write a script, cast actors, and star in their own short film. It culminates in a full-day of on-set production where students get to work with, and learn from, a professional filmmaker. 

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Some of the filmmakers that have volunteered their time with Kids in the Spotlight include The Big Bang Theory and Two and a Half Men writer Lee Aronsohn, Empire and Power Book IV: Force producer Robert Munic, and music video director David Mahmoudieh, who opened the door for Kids in the Spotlight students to work on Ringo Starr’s “Let’s Change the World” music video. 

Importantly, alums of Kids in the Spotlight don’t lose access to the program after the 10 weeks are up — they’re welcome to visit the Van Nuys production studio anytime. And when professional projects rent out the space, KITS students and alums have the unique opportunity to shadow real filmmakers through the Workforce Development Program. 

“It’s an earn-as-you-learn model where entertainment professionals rent studio space from us for their projects and we link to youth that have gone through our program to work on those projects,” Charity says. 

In addition to the Script-to-Screen and Workforce Development programs, KITS launched the National Screenplay Competition during the pandemic. 

“We launched this virtual platform where they can come into the space and go through five weeks of screenwriting to write their individual projects. We turned it into a competition where we invited industry professionals to review the script and vote on the best script. The winning script was produced by Kids in the Spotlight — our first year winner had Terry Crews star in his film, and Ariel Winter from Modern Family. And that young man wrote his entire script on a phone.” 

Daniel W. on the classroom set at the KITS Production Studio in Van Nuys. Photo Credit: Van Green 

The 2022 short is called “Bully,” directed by Mahmoudieh and starring screenwriter and KITS student Rodney Jackson-Brown. He plays Mike, a high schooler who dreams of taking his crush, Cole (Winter) to prom. But when another student ruins his chance, Mike clashes with his strict military father (Crews).  

In total, KITS students have worked on over 95 short films. Recent ones have included “Imperfect Star” directed by Jazmin Bryant, “In This House” directed by Julia Verdin, and “Speak” directed by Camille Brown. 

Now that KITS has been going for 15 years, several KITS alumni have gone on to graduate from college and get work in the industry. KITS also recently received a state-funded grant from Elevate Youth California, which allowed the group to hire three program alums to work on a feature-length documentary called Recovering Innocence about overmedication in the foster care system. 

One 2010 alum of the program, who goes by the mononym Dayday, has also gone on to create high-profile ad campaigns for Nike, Facebook, the WNBA, and others. Dayday also directed an ad for KITS called “Golden Ticket,” which was written by KITS students. 

Success stories like Dayday’s are what fuel Charity’s next goal: opening a KITS performing arts boarding academy for foster kids between 9th and 12th grade. 

“We’ve had kids in our program that have been bounced around to 18 different high schools. It’s really absurd to think that we expect these kids to graduate high school and go on to college and be successful when there’s been a lack of stability in their lives,” Charity says. 

“Just having that outlet for them where they’re exposed to various parts of the art will allow them to deal with the social and emotional challenges that a lot of them face — because we’re learning that being able to release that through art has really been therapeutic and transformative for these kids.” 

Learn more about Kids in the Spotlight, including how to participate and how to support the organization’s mission, here.

A version of this story first appeared in the Spring 2024 issue of MovieMaker Magazine.

Main Image: (L-R) Lanre Adewole, Catherine Forsyth, Orel Chollette, Theresa Crumpton, Maiyanah H. shooting a hospital scene for the short film “Imperfect Star” directed by Jazmin Byrant at the KITS Production Studio in Van Nuys. Photo Credit: Charissa Kennedy