TOILYNN O'NEAL

“I grew up in the West End. Most of my life under the age of 11, pretty much was in this community. My dad helped to start the Arts Consortium of Cincinnati, which was on Linn Street. And then I lived a lot of time at this library here in the West End and at the Regal Theater. I went to St. Joseph Elementary school. And then I also attended the parish of St. Joseph as a child. Currently, I've come back to the West End to remodel the Regal Theater to be Cincinnati's African American and multicultural Arts Center. It's a $12 million project where we are actually not just going to be a hub to show art and do performances, but actually to be a business hub in the arts. So we're going to teach people the business of arts, how to do other things that allow them to grow their mindset around careers in the arts and technology, and entrepreneurship.”