Isabella Powell started performing in live theater when she was five years old. It just runs in her blood, she told The Dispatch on Wednesday, and it has helped her have the confidence and social skills she carries with her throughout her life.

Now, Powell and others are hoping to teach those same skills to children at the Columbus Unit of the Boys and Girls Club of the Golden Triangle, thanks to a new partnership expanding Golden Triangle Theatre’s All For One program this fall.

“We love the ministry that the Boys and Girls Club provides to the community of the Golden Triangle region and everywhere,” Powell, education coordinator for the theater group, said. “We are just really looking for an opportunity to touch a different sector of children that might need this.”

Starting in August, Golden Triangle Theatre will come to the unit once a week, allowing fifth and sixth graders to participate in a theater enrichment course. Powell said the course is not designed to push kids toward theater long term, but instead, to give them the “building blocks for success throughout their entire lives.”

“They do learn skills such as social skills, they learn public speaking skills, they learn how to present themselves in front of a crowd, organizational skills,” Powell said. “We also take them through lessons of ‘how do we emote,’ because some kids don’t understand that.’”

The theater group’s All For One program kicked off last year, bringing theater enrichment directly into Fairview Elementary and West Clay Elementary School. But earlier this spring, Powell met Boys and Girls Club Columbus Unit Director Christine Jackson, and the pair started discussing plans to expand the program to the club’s kids.

“I’m super excited about it. We have a lot of characters here at the Boys and Girls Club, so I can’t wait to see them on stage and performing art,” Jackson said.

The Columbus Unit of the club currently serves about 55 to 60 fifth and sixth graders, Jackson said. She foresees the theater classes including about 15 of those students at a time.

Jackson said that, while the club already helps to push its members academically, she hopes the theater course will get the participants outside of their comfort zone, teaching them self-awareness and other skills.

“It’s always good for kids to get involved in performing arts and those different kinds of things that they may not have regular access to,” Jackson said.

Jackson also called the new partnership a “perfect fit” for the club, helping the children to explore their interests.

“We already have culinary, we have a music program, and we also have a design studio,” Jackson said. “So the performing arts just fits perfectly right in, because this is one of those things we have not reached yet.”

Jackson encouraged community partners and family members to support the kids participating in the program this year and to look forward to the showcase at the end of the semester.

Powell said Golden Triangle Theatre hopes to continue expanding its All For One program throughout the Golden Triangle. Those interested in partnering with the program can go to goldentriangletheatre.com.