Nurturing the talents of our local teens

I own Strong Side Studios here in Valley Stream and between concerts, school talent shows and other community events, it dawned on me, “the talent in Valley Stream is priceless. Let me take it a step further.”

From one standpoint or another, I have seen so much youth talent in this town and it inspired me. One night about a year-and-a-half ago, I had a meeting in which the idea was born about having a program to further enhance that talent. We began to form the rough draft of the mission statement. During that same night, the name just came to me — Star Potential. Ironically, the name Star Potential was not mentioned with the intent to just stop at music or performing. I thought how cool it would be to develop a music/entertainment program to enrich the child as a whole. Then as I kept going back and forth with my partner at the studio, Joanne Cuomo, and we came up with more pieces to the puzzle. Why not make Star Potential a more complete program?

Talent comes in different forms and it goes further than the person behind the microphone or on the stage. The people that engineer the recording and the ones that film the shows and the ones that edit the videos are very talented also. With that being said, that’s the meaning behind Star Potential.

Star Potential was started with an idea to allow the youth to be part of a great program that allows them to use their creativity to reach for the stars. And through time, we noticed that while allowing them to develop that passion for creativity, it developed other skills and gave them the understanding that anything is possible.

Star Potential is a non-profit organization, geared toward youths of the community looking for opportunities to learn a talent or express and enhance their talents whether it is through instrumental, vocal, dance, drama, video or electronics. The goal is to help build on their talents and, more importantly, their confidence in a safe, adult-guided environment.