Fleisher Art Memorial and one of its students get ready for a White House honor

For 16-year-old Zulmarie Nazario, Wednesday afternoons usually mean "alone time," a chance to unwind and channel her creative energy at Fleisher Art Memorial's after school drop-in program for teenagers.

But  this Wednesday afternoon, she will stand before 400 people in the East Room of the White House and accept the president's National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award from Michelle Obama on behalf of Fleisher.

After moving to Philadelphia from Puerto Rico three years ago, Nazario, a junior at the Academy at Palumbo, enrolled in the Teen Lounge, which lets high school students select artists who engage them in projects. It is one of Fleisher's four programs to be honored for engaging the youth in the arts through community initiatives.

At the Teen Lounge Nazario has worked on mosaics, self-portraits, still lifes, and abstract drawings.

"Since I've come here, I see things different now," Nazario said of her experience at Fleisher. "I just open my mind, and it gives me an opportunity to see things differently and try it and not just say 'no.' "

Selected from 471 applicants and 50 finalists, Fleisher is one of 12 after-school and community programs nationwide recognized this year by the president's Committee on Arts and Humanities. In addition to the honor, the center will receive a $10,000 grant.

Representatives of the center, which had applied for the award in the past, learned of the award this summer after submitting an extensive application and letters of recommendation from prominent community members, according to Matt Braun, Fleisher's executive director.

"It's like getting into college," Braun said. "You get the thin letter, or you get the thick envelope. We got the box. And the box was the signal that 'Oh, my gosh, this is actually happening.' "

Fleisher's youth programs serve close to 2,500 children a year and include the Teen Lounge, Community Partners in the Arts, which sends trained teaching artists into schools and community centers in South Philadelphia for extended periods, and after-school workshops and classes. Fleisher also hosts free Saturday art classes for children ages 5 to 18 at its studio on Catharine Street in Bella Vista.

An estimated 75 percent of the South Philadelphia children Fleisher serves live at or below the federal poverty line, and close to 50 percent speak English as a second language, Braun said.

"From the very beginning, Fleisher has been about equity and access," he said. The organization receives funding for its free children's programs from private foundations, individual donors, and tuition from its adult art classes.

In the Teen Lounge, a teal-painted room with a comfortable sofa on the second floor of the Catharine Street building, students evaluate project proposals from the local artists who apply to teach at Fleisher and select those who most appeal to them, Braun said.

"The success of the program is that we put a lot of control in the teens' hands to decide what it is that that they want to do," he said. "We do that because that's what keeps them engaged."

Encouraging students to develop their own artistic vision is key to Fleisher's mission, according to Magda Martinez, the center's director of programs.

"There's an inherent level of sophistication in young people," Martinez said. "It's just that the environments they function in don't always encourage it."

Martinez said this sophistication is wholly revealed during an annual show, when parents come to Fleisher to see their children's art displayed in its professional gallery.

"I watch them, and I realize they're looking at their kids as if they're seeing them for the first time," she said. "You can just sort of see young people stand up a little straighter when they see their work in a gallery."

Nazario said she discovered a passion for abstract drawing at Fleisher but hopes to become an obstetrician-gynecologist

"I don't want to be a nobody," she said. "I want to be able to say, 'Look at me. Look at where I'm from. I'm from Puerto Rico, and I've achieved all this.' "

With her outfit, a black and gray dress, and greeting for the first lady already planned for Wednesday's award ceremony, Nazario hopes to remain calm onstage.

"It feels great," she said. "I feel special."