Sweet Sensation joins The House of Tribes
by: Dominique F. Bachemin

Sharice Vadon is the founder and director of SWEET SENSATION a local Performance of Art, not-for-profit organization that works with young people of the Lower Eastside. Sharice is originally from Newark, New Jersey where she and her brothers and sisters were raised by a matriarcal family. She remembers her younger years when her mother was director of the church choir and in school there was always Performance of Art.

When Sharice moved to New York she landed in the Jacob Riis Housing Projects in the Lower Eastside of Manhattan. Once the home of President Lyndon B. Johnson's Mobilization for The Youth and Job Corps. Programs which were a part of his War on Poverty addressed in a larger program known as The Great Society . By the time Sharice arrived to L.E.S. she noticed that there were no activities for young people and no Performance of Art in the schools. Not only that, in some cases the kids didn't even have recess where they were able to go outside and stretch their legs, talk to their friends or just to take a walk.

This outraged Sharice and she took action. Asside from the fact that she is a mother of 4, a hard working 9 to fiver who has never been on welfare, she gathered kids, organized programs and got to work, teaching them dance, taking them on feild trips, implementing strict discipline in behavior, punctuality and manners.

I met her last year or the year before in 2002 teaching her kids on a bright summer day in the yard on the grounds of Jacob Riis Housing Projects. We had planned many times to get together so that our kids could take advantage of her programs and vice versa but this did not happen until this year, 2005.

Today, since Sharice Vadon her program SWEET SENSATION have joined forces with THE HOUSE OF TRIBES, we have expanded our ability to effect these young people, physically, spiritually and mentally through dance, piano, photography, web-design, woodshop, theater and more. The list just keeps expanding and parents get involved.

Please take a look at our photo gallery.