YouthActionNet Global Fellow Marisa Catalina Casey founded Starting Artists to provide opportunities for under-served students, ages 13 to 18, in Brooklyn, New York to launch arts-based micro-enterprises. Marisa recognized that underprivileged youth often find it difficult to compete for jobs in the new economy without opportunities to develop their creativity and entrepreneurial skills.

In 2009, with support from Starbucks™, Starting Artists launched the Creative Entrepreneurs Club. Its goal: to enable teenagers to apply their creative skills to benefit a local nonprofit organization. View the slideshow to see these young entrepreneurs in action.

Starting Artists is one of 45 youth-led social innovations in 22 countries to receive a Starbucks™ Shared Planet™ Youth Action Grant through the International Youth Foundation.