Marin Women's Hall of Fame

Felecia Gale Gaston
by Marilyn L. Geary  
In conjunction with the Writer's Center of Marin

         Felecia Gaston was born on December 1, 1955 at Fort McPherson Army Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia.  At that time, her father was in the Air Force stationed at a nearby base.  The very same day that Felicia was born, December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, an African-American seamstress, made history in Montgomery, Alabama for refusing to let a white bus rider take her seat on the city bus.  Rosa’s refusal and subsequent arrest made a crack in the wall of segregation.  That crack ultimately caused the wall to crumble.

         Rosa’s determined and courageous act, however, did not come soon enough for Felecia, who lived as a child in the South when segregation was still very strong.  Felecia has never forgotten the denied dreams of her childhood.  Today Felecia is Executive Director of Performing Stars of Marin, an organization she founded in 1990 to help children realize their dreams.

        When she was one year old, Felecia’s parents separated. She and her mother, Roberta, moved in with her grandmother, Estelle.  They lived in Estelle’s modest little home in the tiny town of Marietta, Georgia.  To support her family, Roberta worked long and hard hours at her job for the U.S. Post Office.  Raising a family as a single parent was tough, and Estelle provided enormous support.  Estelle took on the role of Felecia's primary caregiver.  She was a remarkable women of great vision, strength and discipline.  She had little money, but she lived as if poverty did not matter.  She kept her garden beautifully landscaped and conveyed to Felecia her love of growing things.

        Estelle also conveyed to Felecia her love of music.  Felecia grew up surrounded by the joyful rhythms of the Lord’s songs, in particular the sweet harmonies of  The Sacred Hearts, Georgia’s first Black female gospel group.  Estelle had been one of the founders of The Sacred Hearts.  She and Roberta were active singers in the group. Gospel songs filled Estelle’s little house with joy.  Estelle often hosted big dinners for The Sacred Hearts and visiting gospel groups.  Felecia remembers listening to the spirited songs and discussions of the gospel singers as they sat around the table at her grandma’s house.

        Surrounded by inspirational songs of the soul, Felecia grew up with a strong faith. These singers, their devout songs and conversation, were a major positive influence in Felecia’s young life.  These early experiences gave Felecia the understanding that poverty doesn't have to be ugly and squalid.  Felecia grew up in poverty, but she didn’t feel poor because she was surrounded by the riches of love, music, faith, friends and family.

        As a child, Felecia was expected to participate in Sunday School and church, but she didn’t mind at all.  She wanted to go to church. She loved listening to the sermons and the choir.  Felecia was frequently asked to recite in Sunday School at the Baptist Church.  She enjoyed these performance experiences, and her self-esteem grew stronger as she successfully gave more recitals.

        Felecia’s grandmother and great-grandmother were exceptionally positive role models. Grandmother Estelle was a hard-working seamstress who transmitted her belief in the value of hard work to her family.  Felecia and her sisters and cousins had no time to watch cartoons on Saturday morning.  They spent most Saturdays doing chores, shining silver, ironing pillow cases and tending their grandmother’s garden.  Today Felecia has a garden in Marin City called Big Momma’s Garden.  She finds herself doing lots of things in her garden that her grandma taught her.

        Felecia’s mother Roberta worked at the post office for thirty long years.  She worked all the day but was always there for Felecia and her sisters.  Roberta consistently reminded her family of the need to achieve.  She made sure her children participated at their church.  Her care for her children’s futures made a huge positive difference in their lives.

        Estelle constantly reminded Felecia that she could be a success if she stayed consistent, had high hopes and worked hard.  But it was difficult for Felecia to have high hopes when she lived in a society that treated her as a second class citizen. Segregation was pervasive in the South when Felecia was growing up.  She had to sit in a segregated balcony at the local theater, drink from colored-only water fountains, eat in segregated restaurants, and comply with the many other segregation laws that treated Black people less than equal.  This unfair treatment made a life-long impression on young Felecia.  Her greatest dream was to learn dancing at the ballet school in the little brick house on the corner.  Felecia wanted to dance.  That dream was denied her because of her skin color, and she never ever forgot it.  It led her later in life to give kids the chance she didn’t have.

        When Felecia was fourteen, Roberta remarried, and the family moved to a new home in Los Angeles.  With the move to Los Angeles, Felecia’s life changed dramatically. Grandma Estelle, other family and friends were gone.  Los Angeles was no sleepy little Marietta, Georgia.  It was a huge, fast-moving sprawling city.  What’s more, the family moved to Los Angeles on December 1, 1969, the night after the Watts riots exploded. Racism and violence filled the big city with discord, danger, and anxiety.

        Both Roberta and her new husband, Willie, worked to provide a good home for Felecia, her two sisters and brother.  Felecia and her siblings seemed shell shocked by the move.  They needed a safe environment. Roberta realized her children were at risk. She and her husband were at work during the day, and the children no longer had their grandmother, family and childhood friends around them.  Roberta was wise enough to enroll her children in the Wilshire District's finest charm school to keep them occupied learning valuable skills.  Felecia took the bus to the charm school on Wilshire Boulevard.  There she learned poise, etiquette and self-confidence.

         After moving to Los Angeles, Roberta kept her children involved in the Baptist Church, where Felecia later served as secretary.  Felecia saw her self-esteem and social skills improve as she began taking part in church musicals and plays.  She began to realize how much there was to life.  Perhaps she could actually reach for the stars.

        Felecia’s parents tried hard to send her in the right direction, and they succeeded. Felecia’s charm school experience, along with her participation in the Baptist Church, led her to take the positive course of actions that has made her successful today. Felecia’s ideas are deeply rooted in charm school and church.  With this experience and the support of her family, she has felt that she could be who she was called to be.  It put barriers aside.  But Felecia needed more than support.  She needed to work hard.  She needed encouragement, plus the willingness to work hard to make it happen.

        While attending junior college, Felecia began working for the Los Angeles Police Department.  She was quickly promoted from Bicycle Records Clerk to Detective and then to Vice Department Radio Operator, where she took hundreds of tragic and violent calls.  When stationed in Watts at this job, Felecia got a daily dose of the grief and tragedy that engulfed the Watts residents.  In a major turning point, she realized that there was nothing to inspire the neighborhood children.  “I kept wondering if the lives of the children I saw every day would be different if they could be inspired by and exposed to the better things in life,” Felecia recalls.  She thought perhaps she could make a difference.  During this period, Felecia also made time for herself and for her childhood dreams. At age 24, she finally began ballet lessons!

        Felecia moved to San Francisco in 1980 and fell in love with The City.  She was fascinated with the big tall buildings and all the activities in San Francisco.  She found living arrangements in an international residence house where she had the opportunity to get to know people from other many different cultures.

        Felecia’s horizons broadened.  For a while, she thought she might become a meteorologist.  She went to California State University at Hayward and San Francisco State University, where she majored in Geography and Environmental Studies.  She believed these two subjects could help people understand each other on a global level. During this time, she also worked part-time for the National Park Service, the California Coastal Commission, and the Junior Center for Arts and Science. She also coordinated art shows at local galleries and volunteered as a Brownie Troop Leader.

         During this period, Felecia also started a public relations firm called Migrations Limited to help organizations put on special events.  She coordinated art receptions for artists from Haiti and Brazil.  Felecia also put on a reception for visiting film directors from Africa.  She loved getting to know foreign artists.  She found that there wasn’t anyone in the communities to welcome these artists.  The Black artists did not receive same hospitality as other artists.  Felecia felt the Black community should more actively welcome the artists and sponsor community events to honor the visiting artists’ work.

        Felecia also began doing volunteer work with the San Francisco International Film Festival and started putting on receptions for visiting filmmakers when they came to town.  Felecia gave Spike Lee his first reception in San Francisco when he was a student filmmaker.  She volunteered for Women in Film and Television and set up a reception for Cecily Tyson.  She also put on a show with the Black Female Executives in Television.

        When Felecia landed in Marin City, it was a low-income area composed largely of Black residents.  A friend who worked in the Community Development Corporation went on vacation and asked Felecia whether she wanted to work there part-time.  Felecia came to Marin City and fell in love with it.  “There’s a feel to the air here, especially when it’s warm outside,” Felecia says.  “The kids are out of school and I can hear them playing.” The sounds reminded her of her Georgia childhood.  Marin City had a sense of family and love.  Felecia has been there ever since.  When she was thirty, Felecia wrote and published a book called Gaston’s Guide - a listing of more than one hundred of the Bay Area’s Black-owned restaurants.  The Black owners underwrote the publication costs. “I saw a need, and I tried to fill it.  Very little has ever been written about black cuisine - what it is and where to find it,” said Felecia.  “Most of these restauranteurs have never even advertised before.  More than anything, my book is a list of the area’s black entrepreneurs.”

        Publishing this book wasn’t easy, especially since Felecia already had a demanding job working for the Marin City Multi-Service Center.  Starting in 1984 and over the next six years, Felecia worked as Administrative Assistant, then as Community Relations/Cultural Events Coordinator for the organization, a family service agency designed to strengthen the family unit.

         Felecia knew next to nothing about publishing, but she didn’t let that stop her.  On publishing the book, she said, “I’m a Sagittarius - a person who likes to make things happen, same as Walt Disney, Richard Pryor, Cicely Tyson and Frank Sinatra.  I didn’t know a thing about publishing, but I had a strong belief that this was something that I had to do and that my book would help other newcomers.”

         As Community Relations/Cultural Events Coordinator, Felecia’s goals were to build a good public image for the community and to develop programs that would help the children build self-esteem.  Through their mutual goals of providing services to Marin City residents, Felecia Gaston and Anne Rogers, Executive Director of Marin Community Food Bank, met and became friends.  They shared a similar background and often shared their experiences, the feelings and frustrations of growing up in the segregated South.  Although they were separated by more than twenty years in age, they shared similar feelings and experiences.

        Over the next three years, Anne and Felecia had many conversations about the problems and issues facing the young people in Marin City and what they could personally do to help these young people develop the self esteem, character and discipline necessary to become more productive members of society.

        Felecia saw that, in Marin City, there are many decent people and good parents who want the very best for their children.  Yet a high percentage of young people become high school drop-outs, teenage mothers and fathers.  Many young people turn to the world of drugs.  These problems overshadow the lives of the good and decent people who live in Marin City.  Oftentimes, the negative reputation affects the self-esteem of even the very young children.

         In December 1988, the Marin Ballet Center for Dance brought a mini-performance of the Nutcracker Suite to Marin City as part of its community outreach program.  The Marin City children were enthralled with the performance!  Felecia and Phyllis Thelen, Marin Ballet's Development Director, hit it off right away, and together they worked diligently to establish a scholarship program for minority children.  Felecia directed the program as part of her job at the Marin City Multi-Service Center.  Felecia also contacted Charles McNeal, Associate Manager of the San Francisco Ballet, to learn about its scholarship program.

        In April 1989, forty-three Marin City children tried out for twenty scholarships to the Marin Ballet.  The scholarships initiated a remarkable change in the participants.  After one year, eighteen of the original twenty children were still enrolled in ballet. One child, moving out of the county, sadly had to drop class.

        Over time, the scholarship program grew larger. Children and parents got involved, and a sense of pride began to emerge.  Felecia organized potlucks for the students and their families.  “Eating together is a wonderful way to get to know people,” she says.  Word of success spread in the community. Local teachers expressed their delight in seeing positive behavior changes in some of the children.  In addition to their ballet classes, the children met weekly to discuss good manners, etiquette, discipline, self-esteem, proper grooming and dress codes for the group.

        Felecia and the children were determined to succeed.  Even the Earthquake in October 1989 and the traffic jams it created did not prevent the children from getting to ballet on time.  The children insisted on leaving home an hour earlier.  The parents formed a support group that met on a consistent basis. They took great pride in being able to say, "My child goes to the Marin Ballet."  The parents held a fundraiser and raised $500 to help support transportation for the children.  Some of the mothers asked that the support group be expanded to include help in getting into school in order to expand or begin a career.

        Felecia was overjoyed with the program’s success in its first year, but the twenty-three children who did not receive scholarships constantly asked Felecia, "When can we get in the program?"  Many other children, parents and grandparents stopped Felecia on the street and asked, "When will you be having sign-ups again?" and "Can you develop some lessons that boys will be more interested in?"

        By February 1, 1990, Felecia had fifty children in the program and a waiting list of fifty-six children who wanted join. Felecia and Phyllis also had started plans to duplicate this successful program in the Canal Area of San Rafael to serve its large population of Hispanic and Asian residents.

        But just three weeks before the first group’s recital, disaster struck!  Due to reorganization of Human Service Agencies in Marin City, Marin City Multi-Service Center closed its doors.  Felecia's position and the Ballet Scholarship Program were not picked up by any Marin City agency.  Funding to continue the program was lost.

        Frantic, Felecia scrambled to find a way to continue this highly successful program and to maintain the positive energy of the children.  She went to her old friend Anne Rogers at the Marin Community Food Bank and asked for help.  She also asked help from three others - Virginia Spencer, Norm A. Howard, and Dr. Mark Schillinger.  Working with these supporters, the Marin Community Food Bank and the Community Action of Marin, Felecia formed the Performing Stars of Marin, a non-profit agency offering low income children, predominately African-Americans, the chance to learn dance, martial arts, grooming, discipline and manners in an environment of respect and support.

        To support herself financially while she built the Stars Program, Felecia took a job with the Marin County Sheriff’s Department.  She worked five years enforcing parking regulations around the Marin City Flea Market to  sustain herself while developing Stars.  In this job, Felecia served as a positive role model. The children in the community could see her in uniform, and she served as a bridge between the community and law enforcement.

        Felecia had her struggles in starting and maintaining Stars.  She wasn’t originally from Marin City, and it took her a while to get accepted.  The Grandparents are the foundation of the Marin City community, and once they accepted Felecia and they understood that what she was doing was for their grandchildren, then she knew that the program going to survive.  The Grandparents were the ingredient that made the program a success.  They came to rehearsals and performances.  They made costumes and brought food to potlucks. In both Marin City and the Canal area, family members, grandparents and aunts and uncles, have of several Grandparents for support if she needs it.  She is well connected with several communities, Hispanic, Black and Vietnamese.

        Over time, Performing Stars of Marin has grown larger and more successful.  One of Felecia’s most rewarding programs is still the scholarship program, which provides outreach for training scholarships offered by major art organizations in Marin County, such as the Marin Theatre Company, the Bay Area Discovery Museum and the Marin Ballet Center for Dance.  Felecia works closely with existing agencies, encouraging participation of local organizations and area residents through social, cultural and educational events.  Meetings are held monthly to encourage parents’ support and involvement with their children.

        These scholarships provide private lessons in the performing arts for kids who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford it.  The scholarship program fosters integration in mostly white Marin.  “You can really break a lot of barriers in a non-threatening way through the arts,” says Felecia.

         The Social Skills program provides nurturing and social enrichment, encourages positive attitudes and teaches values and skills that enable the children to take advantage of the overall program.  All children in Performing Stars attend these classes and enter at least one art discipline as well. Felecia also started the Star Roles to Model  Program, which introduces children to successful adult speakers, often minority, who encourage the youngsters to excel in life.

        The Boys to Men Program for boys five to twelve years old, includes a Young Men’s Drill Team, Color Guard and Martial Arts Group.  A Girls to Ladies program for girls five to twelve years, includes a Song and Dance Variety Troupe and a Young Ladies Marching Unit.  The combined Young Men’s Drill Team and Color Guard and the Young Ladies’ Marching Unit won the overall best unit in the parade at the 1992 Mill Valley Memorial Day Parade.

         Felecia also started a literary program of storytelling, reading, poetry and the classics.  A Visual Arts program includes a photography workshop.  She provides music classes for pre-schoolers, and provides support services for children to take advantage of scholarships from the Bay Area Discovery Museum. Participants in Stars have the opportunity to get jobs at the Bay Area Discovery Museum.  This facet of the program helps kids realize their goals. If they want to work, they can work to help achieve their dreams.

        What has been the secret to Felecia’s success with the Performing Stars Program? The kids learn routine.  They come to practice, and the kids become a family.  The kids become more aware, have higher self-esteem, a greater social awareness, and they learn to interact well with other people.  “I feel like they’re all my kids,” Felecia says.  “I have a long history with them.  I am like a drill sergeant and a stage mother.  I have high expectations of them.”

         The children are aware when they perform in other communities that they represent a group that is often stereotyped.  They counteract the belief that Black children can’t learn, that they don’t know how to dress, that they badly misbehave.  The children take pride in their important role as ambassadors for their community.

         Performing arts give the kids a sense of self. Once they take pride in their achievements, they can go on to achieve other things in their lives.  Felecia was extremely shy in high school.  She sometimes wonders how things might have been different if she had been able to participate in a program like Performing Stars when she was young.

         Felecia often comments that the arts are a great way to cross boundaries.  The arts, especially the performing arts, bring all types of people together and give them a chance to get comfortable and relaxed.   It’s a good way to create interaction, and that certainly has been the case with Performing Stars.

        One of Felecia’s heroes is Arthur Mitchell, the founder of the Dancers of Harlem.  In 1955 Arthur joined the New York City Ballet and became the first African-American male dancer to become a permanent member of a major ballet company. He quickly rose to the position of principal dancer and electrified audiences for the next fifteen years with his talented performances.

        Arthur Mitchell was on his way to Brazil the day Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. When he heard the news, Arthur decided he had to go back to Harlem and do something to provide children in Harlem with the kinds of opportunities that had been given to him.  That summer, he began giving ballet classes to local children in a Harlem church basement.  In 1969, Arthur Mitchell founded the Dance Theatre of Harlem.  Now thirty-one years old, Dance Theatre of Harlem has grown into a multicultural institution of world renown, comprised of students and dancers from the United States and abroad.  Felecia makes sure to take a group of Marin kids to Zellerbach Auditorium at U.C. Berkeley whenever the Dance Theatre of Harlem performs there.  She has also coordinated and set up receptions for Mr. Mitchell and the Harlem dancers.

        Felecia has also taken the children on other field trips, such as the San Francisco Ballet performance of The Nutcracker, in an effort to expand their horizons.  These art-related field trips expose the children to the professional art world and broaden their experiences through opportunities to attend performances by professional companies and artists.

        Performing Stars puts on a major annual performance, a big recital where the kids can display their talents and skills to parents, family and friends.  It is a tremendous occasion both for the kids and for their families to celebrate the enormous talent and energy.  Once the children receive applause, they feel approval, positive reinforcement and are likely to continue taking chances.

        Recognizing the strong relationship between self-esteem and personal independence and realizing the importance of building self-esteem early in life, the Marin County Housing Authority contracted with Performing Stars of Marin in 1997.  It asked Performing Stars to bring its services to youth in public housing.  The program received $52,640 leveraged through partnerships with the Marin Community Foundation, the Marin Ballet, Pacific Gas and Electric, Pacific Telesis, and the United Way's African-American Community Trust grant.  These partners donated services, scholarships, and a variety of products, including uniforms and a van.  Performing Stars of Marin was also successful in its fundraising efforts.  The program enrolled 200 children between 5 and 13 years of age, 85 percent of whom were residents of public housing.

        The Marin Housing Authority commented that “self-expression in the performing arts allows children to channel their aggression and emotions into constructive, creative veins.  The students are also learning valuable life skills that will enable them to confront life's obstacles head on and develop pride in their accomplishments, an alternative to the instant gratification that drugs provide.  Exposure to new ideas, new people, and new possibilities for the future not only helps the children combat the isolation that comes from living in public housing and can result in drug use, but it also stretches their horizons.”  Felecia’s program has been a resounding success, enabling low-income and minority children who are at risk in Marin County the opportunity to participate in the performing, visual and literary arts, and to “reach for the stars.”

        Now as Executive Director of Performing Stars of Marin, Felecia has fulfilled her dream of taking Performing Stars of Marin from a struggling neighborhood program with no budget to a successful county wide organization that enjoys enthusiastic support of Marin City families and the financial support of the Marin Community Foundation.

        She is proud that the organization has reached its ten year anniversary.  Performing Stars now serves over two hundred kids ages three to seventeen in many communities in Marin County and provides them with a challenging and mindful learning environment, a program that values respect, hard work and achievement.  “What motivates Felecia?  She loves to see development in kids.  She has seen tremendous growth in the children she has served.  She recalls one shy little three year old who is now the only little black girl in ballet class.  She recalls one Vietnamese boy from the Canal District who started ballet when he was four years old.  With hard work and talent, he received a scholarship to the San Francisco Ballet.  He took ballet classes six days a week.  Presently, he is a full-time student at the National Ballet in Toronto, Canada.  He’s a teenage boy who is not only staying out of trouble, he’s living his dream to become a dancer.

        When children learn self-esteem through the performing arts, the applause stays with them for a lifetime.  Both these individuals and their communities benefit from their successes.  For persistently following through on her belief that all children should have a chance to reach for the stars, Felecia has been recognized as the Marin Women’s Hall of Fame 1999 Honoree in Education and Social Change.

         Felecia says she does what she does because, “I am passionate and love exposing children to a larger horizon.”  Felecia’s next dream broadens her own horizons.  She’d like to travel and set up similar programs to Performing Stars in other places.  She’ll provide instruction, outreach to the community and arts organizations, and help to get the facilities, teachers and children involved.  Felecia believes that the success of Performing Stars in Marin County can happen throughout the nation.  With strong determination, talents and beliefs,  Felecia continues to reach for the stars and to thrive in the positive growth she creates as she succeeds in her goals.