You Belong Here:
Nic Roc

You Belong Here | Behind the Mask

Nic Roc,
Owner and Program Director of You Belong Here

Meet the owner and visionary behind the collaborative work and event space in City Heights.  She is an entrepreneur with an energetic passion to bring together community, create a safe space for others and help businesses turn their ideas and concepts into reality.

 

What’s your message to your community?

I’m still here; to support you, to hear you, to empower you.

 

How can the community best support you?

Spread the word. Help keep community spaces, and BIPOC owned studios, galleries, and arts alive! We are the changemakers pushing inclusion and equity!.

 

What has been your creative escape during COVID?

The Artist’s Way book and a weekly Creative Quarantine Zoom meetup, has really helped me tap into creative exploration. I’ve changed the narrative of what productivity looks like and made more space for exploration from within. Voice memos!!! It is a daily practice for me to send those I love and care for little inspirational reminders, check-ins, love notes, and updates. Dancing; it has helped me find my way back to my youthful roots. A gentle reminder of who I am and that in which I came from. Reading! So many books; a majority of them are focused on building social infrastructure, social entrepreneurship, and social justice. I am forever in a place of growth and expansion.

 

What has COVID taught you about connection?

Connection is what makes us real to one another. Connection is a force of energy that elevates and amplifies our spirits.

 

What place in your neighborhood are you excited to get back to? Why?

You Belong Here in City Heights. YBH evolved into not only a collaborative workspace, but rather a safe space for launching community-based programs, a space to launch great ideas, a place to be vulnerable, have challenging discussions, learning about new cultures and lived experiences, experiencing art, celebration, and overall, being a place that allowed me and my community to grow. I’m excited to get back because now more than ever, we’re all going to need a space to gather and start over.

 

If you were to write a book about 2020 so far, what would the title be?

Don’t Stop Dancing

 

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