SOL Club Founders
Mother-Daughter Team
Carmen Maria & Adele Davalos Mitchell
Carmen is the founder and Executive Director of Redwood Theatre Company. Her mother Adele, founded the original SOL Club program at Lawrence Cook Junior High School back in the 90's.
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Carmen and Adele now work together to bring the SOL Club back to life by creating intentional outreach programs that provide resources and education opportunities to the vulnerable, underserved youth of color our the community.
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Adele Davalos Mitchell
Adele Davalos Mitchell
Founder & Director of SOL
Adele has been an educator for over thirty years. She has taught visual art, dance, physical education and film studies. Adele has worked with generations of students at Montgomery High School, Lawrence Cook Junior High School, Santa Rosa Junior College and was a founding faculty member at Maria Carrillo High School.
Her awards include the California State Senate Award for Outstanding Commitment to Southwest Santa Rosa Youth, recognition at a Congressional Forum on Education hosted by United States Representative, Lynn Woolsey and the Excellence in Education Award presented by the Santa Rosa Chamber of Commerce.
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At Lawrence Cook Junior High School, Adele was the founding teacher of SOL Club (Socially Organized Latinos). SOL was a club that originated on campus as a way of resolving gang violence that had emerged in 1994. SOL club combined honoring cultural heritage, community collaboration and visual art projects to create positive social change. SOL activities included weekly guest speakers from the community, participation in art festivals, canned food drives, student speakers sharing the SOL club experience with other schools, lowrider bike shows, Cinco de Mayo celebrations and art creations throughout the school.
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SOL successfully ended the gang fighting on campus with students focusing on cultural pride and giving back to their community. Two student leaders of the original SOL club are now local community leaders. Omar Medina is a Santa Rosa City Schools Trustee and Gustavo Mendoza is the Outreach Specialist for the City of Santa Rosa.
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Adele was also the founder and executive director of Santa Rosa Dance Theater for over fourteen years, providing professional dance training and performance opportunities for hundreds of young artists.
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Adele continues to be an advocate for underserved youth by helping to promote art as a way of self expression and resilience.
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Carmen Maria Mitchell
Carmen Maria Mitchell
Founder of Redwood Theatre Company & Co-Director of SOL
Carmen is one of Adele's two daughters.
She is a professional performing artist, working in both California & New York City. Carmen grew up as a competitive figure skater and ballet dancer. She now works as a professional singer, actor and producer. Her body of artistic work includes many leading roles in musicals, short films, commercials and professional ice skating shows.
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Carmen recently appeared as a principal performer on a National Tour of Disney on Ice, where she debuted the role of the “Live Host” and was also hired to do voice over work for Feld Entertainment.
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Carmen attended a performing arts high school, then went on to study Performing Arts and Social Justice at the University of San Francisco and Santa Rosa Junior College.
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Carmen is now the founder of the non-profit Redwood Theatre Company bringing Art to the community with professional productions, youth performance camps and outreach programs. She is also the co-founder of the media productions company FTA Productions (For The Art). Working alongside artists and bold brands to create cutting edge media content.
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Carmen has a passion for social justice work. Her companies include full inclusion opportunities for artists with developmental disabilities and outreach art workshops for underserved youth, especially in the Latinx communities.
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She is the director of the FTA Social Justice Art Series: creating social awareness and community connections through art. She is also the co-director of the SOL Art Program: providing art and healing to marginalized youth.
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In addition to her professional career as a performing artist, Carmen in currently producing several projects including: "The Patrol Lowrider" Documentary, "The SOL Club" Documentary, the Broadway on Skates project, Redwood Ice Theatre show series, and "Performing on the Edge" Podcast.