Meet Elijah Wade of Atlanta

Today we’d like to introduce you to Elijah Wade.

Hi Elijah, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.

I started reading into why that happened, the actual neuroscience of how creating something with your hands lowers cortisol and calms your nervous system. That’s when it clicked for me that this wasn’t just something helping me cope, it was medicine. Real, accessible medicine that didn’t require insurance or an appointment.

As a father of three, I think about access a lot. I want my kids, and every kid in this city, to grow up knowing that healing doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive. That belief is what turned my lowest moment into Paint N Sit ATL, and carried it from five people with canvases to over 30,000 people served across more than 200 free events.

My wife Elissa came on as COO a few years in, and watching her build out Mindful Mama, a space specifically for mothers to be poured into for once, has been one of the proudest parts of this whole journey. We’re not just running programs. We’re trying to change what healing looks like for our community, one canvas at a time. And now, with the Summer Sol Art and Music Festival coming up on July 25th, it feels like everything we’ve built is coming full circle.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?

There was also the challenge of being taken seriously early on. Convincing people, and honestly convincing myself some days, that art wasn’t just a nice extra but a legitimate form of healing took real work. I had to learn how to speak the language of nonprofits, of city partnerships, of grant committees, all while still holding onto the heart of why I started in the first place.

And then there’s the balance of it all. I’m a father of three, I’ve worked full time jobs alongside building this organization, and there were seasons where I wasn’t sure how everything was going to fit. But every struggle taught me something I needed for the next stage. The grant rejections taught me how to tell our story better. The slow growth taught me patience. And honestly, going through my own hard season, the one that started all of this, taught me that the road doesn’t have to be smooth for something to be worth building.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
What I’m most proud of, more than any single event or partnership, is our impact. Over 30,000 people served across more than 200 free events since 2021. But the number I’m proudest of is this: not one incident of violence at a single one of those events. Not one. And that’s not luck. That’s by design. People who walk into a Paint N Sit space can feel the difference immediately. They feel the love from our team. They feel that the art being shared and the community in that room is respected and welcomed. Peace isn’t something we hope happens, it’s something we build into every detail, from how we train our facilitators to how we set up the space to how we talk to people the moment they walk in.

That’s what sets us apart from anything else out there. Anyone can pour wine and hand out canvases. What we’ve built is a culture. A track record. Two hundred plus events deep, and the thing people remember isn’t just the painting, it’s how they felt while they were there. Safe. Seen. At peace. That’s the medicine. That’s the difference between a paint and sip and a Paint N Sit.

I’m also proud of what that foundation of peace has allowed us to build on top of it, programs like Art of Presence, which pairs guided painting with yoga and sound bowl meditation, school activations across Clayton County and campuses like Spelman, Morehouse, Clark Atlanta, Georgia Tech, and Georgia State, and Mindful Mama, which my wife Elissa built into a dedicated wellness space for mothers. None of that works without the peace being real first.

Do you have any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
My favorite childhood memory is from when I lived in California, going up to R Ranch in Napa Valley as a kid and spending weeks there with my family. Swimming, camping, horseback riding, just being fully immersed in the outdoors. Those are some of my earliest memories of really falling in love with nature.

That connection never left me. It’s carried into my adulthood, into how I parent my own kids, and honestly into how we run Paint N Sit ATL. Creating outdoors, using nature as inspiration, that all traces back to those weeks on the ranch. Nature has always been a source of inspiration for me, and now it’s woven into the work I do every day.

Pricing:

• We keep the core experience accessible because the whole point is that healing shouldn’t come with a price tag people can’t afford. Donations just help us keep showing up.
• Most of what we do is free or donation based, so here’s a quick breakdown for readers: • Community Activations (open paint sessions): free, donation based • Art of Presence (guided painting with yoga and sound bowl meditation): free, donation based • Summer Movie and Art Series: free, donation based • School activations: free for participating schools • Mindful Mama Wellness Day: free, donation based

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Www.paintnsit.org
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/paintnsitatl
• Youtube: https://youtu.be/l9eot6mAcnM
• Other: https://youtu.be/2DTtZtAQyFk?is=Z8QrxbFfYOJwMYH4