Latest / Earn Your Leisure / EYL #288 From Cell to CEO: How 13 Years in Prison Led to a Million-Dollar Anti-Violence Nonprofit

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EYL #288 From Cell to CEO: How 13 Years in Prison Led to a Million-Dollar Anti-Violence Nonprofit · Earn Your Leisure

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child
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  Speaker 1: in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from Al Salvador
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  Speaker 3: See you there, all right, guys, welcome back. Yeah, we
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: are home.
• 1:57
  Speaker 5: And this is a special episode. We got another west
• 2:01
  Speaker 5: Chester resident, Yeah for sure. So when I was at
• 2:05
  Speaker 5: the State of the Union a few weeks ago and
• 2:09
  Speaker 5: shout out to Representative Underwood who took me to she
• 2:13
  Speaker 5: I was her guest at this stay, Jamaal Bowman, who's
• 2:16
  Speaker 5: our congressman from our area where we from and where
• 2:20
  Speaker 5: we currently live. His guest was Jonathan Albarez, and he
• 2:26
  Speaker 5: introduced me. So every every Congressman and every congress person
• 2:31
  Speaker 5: and Senator gets one guest to the State of the Union.
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: So he brought you.
• 2:35
  Speaker 5: He introduced me to you, and he told me a
• 2:38
  Speaker 5: little about your story. Then we connected, then we spoke
• 2:41
  Speaker 5: again offline. Then we actually have a mutual acquaintance as well.
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: Shout out to Rayvaughn Boots. Boots.
• 2:48
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I.
• 2:50
  Speaker 5: Ran it to him and he gave me some more
• 2:52
  Speaker 5: background on you as well. So I thought it was
• 2:54
  Speaker 5: a good story to tell as far as redemption, entrepreneurship,
• 3:01
  Speaker 5: figuring out a landscape after coming home from being incarcerated,
• 3:04
  Speaker 5: something that's extremely difficult. So it's another side of the
• 3:07
  Speaker 5: story as far as financial literacy and business that I
• 3:10
  Speaker 5: think a lot of people can relate to, and a
• 3:12
  Speaker 5: lot of people are, you know, trying to figure it out.
• 3:14
  Speaker 5: So I thought it would be good to highlight your story. So,
• 3:17
  Speaker 5: first and foremost, thank you for joining us.
• 3:18
  Speaker 7: Appreciate it, Appreciate that, Thank you for having me.
• 3:20
  Speaker 5: Yeah for sure, absolutely all right, So let's get the
• 3:23
  Speaker 5: backstory first. So you're from Yonkers south side, south side?
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: What part? What part? What part exactly street?
• 3:33
  Speaker 5: Okay, yeah, shout out when to raise on that side,
• 3:35
  Speaker 5: Shout out to Yankers.
• 3:36
  Speaker 8: It's like three landmarks.
• 3:37
  Speaker 7: It's like the D block, nothing hand, that's the fact.
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: What's the square?
• 3:45
  Speaker 7: The square square and square definitely landmark.
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: So shout out to yankers.
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  Speaker 5: So okay, so you're growing up in Yonkers and I'll
• 3:54
  Speaker 5: let you tell a story. But unfortunate situation happened, right,
• 3:59
  Speaker 5: and you get it incarcerated pretty much your whole entire twenties,
• 4:03
  Speaker 5: from seventeen to thirty, right in the thirty and then
• 4:06
  Speaker 5: you come home and you start a nonprofit organization and
• 4:11
  Speaker 5: it's designed to keep kids off the street, to prevent
• 4:16
  Speaker 5: gang violence, to prevent violent crimes.
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  Speaker 3: Right.
• 4:18
  Speaker 5: So that's kind of the quick overview, but I want
• 4:21
  Speaker 5: you to kind of really tell the story in detail.
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  Speaker 7: No for sure, for sure. So like you said, I
• 4:25
  Speaker 7: went away when I was seventeen for a violent crime.
• 4:27
  Speaker 7: I was getting involved, right, I did nearly thirteen years
• 4:31
  Speaker 7: when I came home. In fact, my interest was not
• 4:34
  Speaker 7: in twenty eighteen. It wasn't the nonprofit land it was
• 4:37
  Speaker 7: fashion because what I studied for my undergrad So, like
• 4:40
  Speaker 7: I tell most people, when I went away, I turned
• 4:42
  Speaker 7: my story around by getting my education. And that's the
• 4:44
  Speaker 7: key thing, my self investment. While doing all that time.
• 4:47
  Speaker 7: I went in with a tenth grade education, came home
• 4:49
  Speaker 7: with a bachel's degree in social studies. But what I
• 4:52
  Speaker 7: studied was fashion trends in urban poverty and understanding the
• 4:55
  Speaker 7: social significance. So I came home with a desire to
• 4:58
  Speaker 7: like do fashion creation, right, Like, I wanted to curate
• 5:01
  Speaker 7: spaces to tell our story and why we wear what
• 5:03
  Speaker 7: we wear in poor communities. So twenty eighteen, I applied
• 5:07
  Speaker 7: to the New School, top elite fashion school in the US.
• 5:10
  Speaker 7: I got water nearly a full scholarship, right. So it's
• 5:13
  Speaker 7: really my reentry experience that inspired the nonprofit work. My
• 5:17
  Speaker 7: first year at home, I'm still on parole. I'm living
• 5:19
  Speaker 7: on my aunt. A lot of elements in the environment
• 5:21
  Speaker 7: I'm in is toxic. Me struggling trying to find my
• 5:24
  Speaker 7: way right. But I'm all preparing to get into the
• 5:27
  Speaker 7: master's program. I'm told I'm serving tables in downtown and
• 5:30
  Speaker 7: yankas in the restaurants, right Like, I'm doing all everything
• 5:33
  Speaker 7: to make it happen. Working for a congressman in Newburg,
• 5:36
  Speaker 7: traveling to Newburgh into Yonkers. I'm doing it all I
• 5:38
  Speaker 7: can to stay out the streets and figure it out.
• 5:40
  Speaker 7: I get into school twenty nineteen, Top Fashion School. Just
• 5:43
  Speaker 7: did thirteen years home nine months at the time, and
• 5:47
  Speaker 7: it was in that experience that kind of woke me
• 5:49
  Speaker 7: up or what it's like to return home and not
• 5:51
  Speaker 7: have certain things in place, even someone to help you
• 5:54
  Speaker 7: guide you along your journey. So I jump right in
• 5:57
  Speaker 7: December twenty nineteen is when I had what I called
• 6:00
  Speaker 7: my first mental health breakdown, right, my first pitfall. And
• 6:04
  Speaker 7: what I learned was I was too go focused and oriented.
• 6:07
  Speaker 7: I never really understood the trauma that comes with after
• 6:09
  Speaker 7: doing so much time, mind you, seventeen and thirty. So
• 6:13
  Speaker 7: now dealing with that trauma I felt, you know, I
• 6:16
  Speaker 7: realized I had. I was working two jobs. I was
• 6:18
  Speaker 7: working at a fashion production company called Spring Studios where
• 6:21
  Speaker 7: they launched New York Fashion Week, and I was working
• 6:24
  Speaker 7: an odd job. I had to let the jobs go
• 6:27
  Speaker 7: because I have to focus on school, right, But now
• 6:29
  Speaker 7: I'm behind on school and now I'm broke in that
• 6:32
  Speaker 7: first semester. That's all that happened two and a half months,
• 6:35
  Speaker 7: and I think I never acknowledged that, like I was
• 6:37
  Speaker 7: moving too fast. So a lot of us know we
• 6:39
  Speaker 7: come home want to play catch up. Some of it
• 6:40
  Speaker 7: in a negative way. Some of the positive way. Mom
• 6:43
  Speaker 7: was like trying to play catchup to get in position
• 6:45
  Speaker 7: it and like kind of gain some independence. But I
• 6:47
  Speaker 7: skipped a couple steps, right. So twenty nineteen, I tell
• 6:51
  Speaker 7: the story coming off the train fourteenth Street going to
• 6:53
  Speaker 7: school and I just started crying, like straight breakdown. I
• 6:56
  Speaker 7: called my brothers, you know what I'm saying. One of
• 6:58
  Speaker 7: them is in the room in the group chat like
• 7:00
  Speaker 7: I let him know, like yo, you know I'm going
• 7:02
  Speaker 7: through it, And each one came to my aid like yeah,
• 7:05
  Speaker 7: we're here for you, Bro, we got you. So I
• 7:07
  Speaker 7: was advised to go see counseling. I withdrew from the
• 7:10
  Speaker 7: Master's program and I learned to say you know, yes
• 7:13
  Speaker 7: to mental health and know the education and start over
• 7:15
  Speaker 7: in twenty twenty and that experience, like the leader in
• 7:18
  Speaker 7: me wanted to do more for people like myself who
• 7:21
  Speaker 7: never had a support system. So me and my BRO
• 7:23
  Speaker 7: co founder John Cobreva, a friend of mine for thirty years,
• 7:27
  Speaker 7: you know, I was like, I want to organize a
• 7:28
  Speaker 7: male support group because you're not a lone brotherhood. In
• 7:31
  Speaker 7: twenty nineteen twenty, right in the new year, we started
• 7:33
  Speaker 7: a first group, a bunch of men coming together to
• 7:36
  Speaker 7: talk about the traumas that we deal with. Because most
• 7:38
  Speaker 7: conversations around politics music a bunch of phyllis. I'm more
• 7:42
  Speaker 7: about real talk, and that inspired me to go forward.
• 7:46
  Speaker 7: I connected with the former superintendent, doctor Gaside of the
• 7:48
  Speaker 7: school district. He connected me to my MBK, my brother's
• 7:51
  Speaker 7: keeper in twenty twenty and I did my first speaking
• 7:54
  Speaker 7: engagement at Lincoln at the Lances Rat twenty twenty and
• 7:59
  Speaker 7: I spoke in that that's school that I got kicked
• 8:01
  Speaker 7: out of at fifteen, so he brought he was the
• 8:03
  Speaker 7: principal that actually expelled me, or so full circle, you
• 8:07
  Speaker 7: know what I'm saying, full circle, I'm coming back from
• 8:08
  Speaker 7: an opportunity I changed my life, and I spoke in
• 8:12
  Speaker 7: front of a group of like for the youth, and
• 8:14
  Speaker 7: my first time I learned how to tell my story,
• 8:16
  Speaker 7: you know what I'm saying in terms of what I've
• 8:18
  Speaker 7: been through gang culture, street culture, prison and now postally struggles.
• 8:22
  Speaker 7: And it was in that moment that I noticed that
• 8:25
  Speaker 7: there's leaders missing like me in the community who was
• 8:28
  Speaker 7: not coming back after so much time, and I realized
• 8:31
  Speaker 7: having the support I had allowed me to make it
• 8:33
  Speaker 7: to that point, and that was like the birth of
• 8:35
  Speaker 7: now on four me seeing the gap of brothers not coming,
• 8:38
  Speaker 7: sisters coming home from prison, and not having somebody who
• 8:41
  Speaker 7: walked that journey, who'd been there to say, yo, we
• 8:43
  Speaker 7: got you. So the name of the support group was
• 8:46
  Speaker 7: called that You're not a lone brotherhood. That's all like
• 8:48
  Speaker 7: creed now that you're not alone. Now I'm full united.
• 8:52
  Speaker 7: And in four years we just blossomed, right, But you know,
• 8:55
  Speaker 7: the movement kept coming until I mean we kept going
• 8:57
  Speaker 7: into the pandemic hit right Mar twenty twenty, right, so
• 9:01
  Speaker 7: we already was doing the MBK work. After my speech engagement,
• 9:04
  Speaker 7: I'm touring all the schools before the school shut down.
• 9:06
  Speaker 7: I'm telling my story. And then when the pandemic hit,
• 9:09
  Speaker 7: we have to go virtual. So the MBKS, their mission
• 9:12
  Speaker 7: is uplifting young men of color, provided mentorship. So that's
• 9:15
  Speaker 7: where the mentoring element of the work we do now
• 9:17
  Speaker 7: was developed. You know, I had three mentees at the
• 9:20
  Speaker 7: time you were all in school giving them guidance. And
• 9:22
  Speaker 7: then the pandemic hit, and then that's when we kind
• 9:25
  Speaker 7: of just pivoted into doing COVID work in the community,
• 9:29
  Speaker 7: helping other cential workers on the front line and not
• 9:32
  Speaker 7: for nothing. That's when we learn to organize and learn
• 9:35
  Speaker 7: community work and becoming a five oh one C three
• 9:37
  Speaker 7: and building a nonprofit in a more structured, more formal way.
• 9:42
  Speaker 7: I'll go on and on them, but you know, basically
• 9:44
  Speaker 7: that experience led me to where started the movement.
• 9:47
  Speaker 8: You said something very important that on that journey as
• 9:50
  Speaker 8: you were going, we felt like you missed a few
• 9:52
  Speaker 8: steps a lot of times. Returning citizens is like there
• 9:56
  Speaker 8: is no blueprint, Like, what.
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: Are some of those steps?
• 9:58
  Speaker 8: Obviously you took some that were forward to deal with
• 10:01
  Speaker 8: something that you've messed What are those steps that you
• 10:03
  Speaker 8: you realize now that this is how I probably should
• 10:05
  Speaker 8: approach it when.
• 10:06
  Speaker 7: I'm doing a solid foundation, right, you know, I wasn't
• 10:09
  Speaker 7: in a financial position, so like now, I like I
• 10:12
  Speaker 7: operate from like a needs assessment. Everything is strategic, right
• 10:15
  Speaker 7: if I want to you know, achieve this goal, I
• 10:17
  Speaker 7: got to think about the needs first, right, you know,
• 10:20
  Speaker 7: there's like levels to it. So I think for me,
• 10:22
  Speaker 7: I was trying to build my foundation but then skip
• 10:25
  Speaker 7: the step to getting into position. But I never had
• 10:28
  Speaker 7: a solid foundation. You know, I wasn't financially independent. For example,
• 10:32
  Speaker 7: I was saving enough money with the hopes of starting school,
• 10:35
  Speaker 7: not knowing what school was going to actually be like, right,
• 10:38
  Speaker 7: not knowing that trauma was going to hit me. So
• 10:40
  Speaker 7: it was like not understanding the foundation is so important
• 10:43
  Speaker 7: to actually grow something solid.
• 10:45
  Speaker 5: So all right, we talked about prison reform a lot,
• 10:48
  Speaker 5: and most of the time that's through laws changing or
• 10:52
  Speaker 5: approbation and different things of that nature. But as far
• 10:55
  Speaker 5: as prison reform actually being able to adap into society, right,
• 11:01
  Speaker 5: that's something that is not talked about a lot. Like
• 11:04
  Speaker 5: talk about that for people that may not have ever
• 11:06
  Speaker 5: experienced incarceration. I don't know anybody that's incarcerated. Like as
• 11:10
  Speaker 5: far as you being incarcerated pretty much your first half
• 11:14
  Speaker 5: of your adult life and then getting relations into the world,
• 11:18
  Speaker 5: how hard was that to adjust as far as you know,
• 11:21
  Speaker 5: having bills, credit, understanding how finances work, you know, trying
• 11:25
  Speaker 5: to get an apartment, and having a felony on your record,
• 11:29
  Speaker 5: like you know, talk about that aspect.
• 11:30
  Speaker 7: Though now nah, for sure, So even like opening my
• 11:33
  Speaker 7: first bank account, right, So again, what we do with
• 11:36
  Speaker 7: the work is provide somebody who knows how to take
• 11:38
  Speaker 7: that person where they need to go. My best friend
• 11:41
  Speaker 7: John Cabrever, the co founder. He was the one that
• 11:43
  Speaker 7: took me to get my ID. He the one that
• 11:45
  Speaker 7: took me to the bank account and say, oh, this
• 11:46
  Speaker 7: how you open up a bank account?
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 11:48
  Speaker 7: You know, there is a lot that goes into like
• 11:50
  Speaker 7: where do you want to park your finances? And like
• 11:52
  Speaker 7: some of us don't have that one person who's going
• 11:54
  Speaker 7: to take time out they you know, their busy day
• 11:57
  Speaker 7: to walk you through. So like that's where the gap
• 11:59
  Speaker 7: is that right with people who want to be in
• 12:02
  Speaker 7: that gap, Taking someone who don't know where to go,
• 12:04
  Speaker 7: but they got to learn how to park their money, right,
• 12:07
  Speaker 7: taking them physically just being that god to them. Right,
• 12:10
  Speaker 7: I had that The system is you know, the re
• 12:13
  Speaker 7: entry landscape which we're talking about in terms of when
• 12:16
  Speaker 7: people come home and what's set in place. There's a
• 12:19
  Speaker 7: lot of lacks, specifically in Westchester. And that's why our
• 12:22
  Speaker 7: work is when people talk about re entry, we say,
• 12:25
  Speaker 7: it's not really when the first day that they come home,
• 12:26
  Speaker 7: it's actually the first day they arrested. Right, re Entry
• 12:29
  Speaker 7: starts one inside. So our work to speak on the
• 12:32
  Speaker 7: financial education and credit building. Right, we actually host a
• 12:36
  Speaker 7: financial education program in the county jail. We did it
• 12:39
  Speaker 7: in Woodfield Detention Center as well, right. So, like our
• 12:42
  Speaker 7: program is its core basis mentorship, but we provide career readiness,
• 12:46
  Speaker 7: financial education, and now recently digital equity. It's teaching people
• 12:49
  Speaker 7: how to navigate tech. Right. So when we go into
• 12:52
  Speaker 7: these institutions like Westchester County Jail, we're talking about life skills, right,
• 12:56
  Speaker 7: how to communicate, right, We're talking about how to develop
• 12:59
  Speaker 7: action plans for you self goal setting, right. But these
• 13:01
  Speaker 7: kids like money, they like to understand numbers. So now
• 13:04
  Speaker 7: we launched an eight week program in account Ejail that
• 13:07
  Speaker 7: took them all the way from the banking and centrals
• 13:09
  Speaker 7: to credit building right where other people who are specialists
• 13:12
  Speaker 7: in this field, right, and all the way to entrepreneurship,
• 13:15
  Speaker 7: like how to start an LLC. A lot of them
• 13:17
  Speaker 7: want to do LLCs and build businesses, but there's so
• 13:20
  Speaker 7: much dynamics to that, right. So we had workshops teaching
• 13:23
  Speaker 7: them that with the hope that when they return home
• 13:25
  Speaker 7: they have some foundation and also someone to call and say, yoh,
• 13:29
  Speaker 7: now I'm ready to apply what I was just taught inside.
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 13:33
  Speaker 7: So that aspect when we think about prison reform, I
• 13:36
  Speaker 7: think about how to change the landscape inside of the
• 13:38
  Speaker 7: institution so that when they return home that they better equipped.
• 13:41
  Speaker 7: You know. I was recently appointed by Andre's to a
• 13:43
  Speaker 7: Cousins to sit on the New York State Prison Education Committee.
• 13:47
  Speaker 7: One of my long term goals is to change the
• 13:50
  Speaker 7: landscape for state prisoners.
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 13:51
  Speaker 7: It's having what we call credible messengers like myself, someone
• 13:55
  Speaker 7: who navigated the criminal legal system and is using that
• 13:57
  Speaker 7: lived experience to you know, leverage impact, right, going into
• 14:01
  Speaker 7: the institutions and shaping what program looks like in the
• 14:03
  Speaker 7: state because we can have curriculum like financial education teaching
• 14:07
  Speaker 7: people how to build budgets using their commis every money, right, Like,
• 14:10
  Speaker 7: that's what we're doing in the county, giving them real
• 14:12
  Speaker 7: applicable tool so that when they come home they at
• 14:14
  Speaker 7: least one step ahead, which ironically is one of the
• 14:17
  Speaker 7: name of our programs is one step ahead.
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 14:19
  Speaker 7: So my aspect of prison reform, because it's so broad, right,
• 14:23
  Speaker 7: it's really just changing what education and programming looks like
• 14:26
  Speaker 7: inside of the institution so that when they return home
• 14:29
  Speaker 7: they could be one step ahead than I was.
• 14:30
  Speaker 5: What's the current state of it though, Like, because like
• 14:32
  Speaker 5: you know, a lot of I know friends that is
• 14:36
  Speaker 5: in states and facts, and a lot of stories that
• 14:38
  Speaker 5: I hear is just like gang fights, just survival.
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: A lot of people's on drugs is.
• 14:46
  Speaker 5: I don't hear a lot of stories of like the
• 14:49
  Speaker 5: whole point of jail should be till you can become
• 14:52
  Speaker 5: a better person.
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: I know that there are programs in jail.
• 14:55
  Speaker 5: But from your dvantage point, what is it as far
• 15:00
  Speaker 5: as the day to day for a prisoner to go through,
• 15:04
  Speaker 5: Because it's like I look at it, like a lot
• 15:06
  Speaker 5: of people don't.
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: It gets lost in translation.
• 15:09
  Speaker 5: Like people it's like, Okay, you do something bad, you
• 15:11
  Speaker 5: get locked up, and then you just go to jail
• 15:13
  Speaker 5: for a long period of time. But if it's supposed
• 15:16
  Speaker 5: to rehabilitate somebody, there should be mental health programs, there
• 15:19
  Speaker 5: should be financial literacy programs. There should be like a
• 15:21
  Speaker 5: boot camp to stay in shape, all kinds of stuff.
• 15:23
  Speaker 5: And I just feel like from the people that I'm
• 15:27
  Speaker 5: hearing stories from, it's just a lot of free time,
• 15:30
  Speaker 5: or it's time that you can kind of just navigate
• 15:32
  Speaker 5: and just do the same thing you was doing on
• 15:34
  Speaker 5: the street. That's not beneficial, right, And then this is
• 15:37
  Speaker 5: why a lot of people fall into the trap of
• 15:39
  Speaker 5: becoming career criminals and career inmates. Right, So like speak
• 15:44
  Speaker 5: on that aspect of it, on.
• 15:45
  Speaker 7: Like the day to day and what it looks like
• 15:46
  Speaker 7: inside in terms of so just so you know, it's
• 15:49
  Speaker 7: mission statement. They not true it it's missing statement right,
• 15:51
  Speaker 7: it's corrections, right, it's not correcting nothing, right, it's actually corrupting.
• 15:55
  Speaker 7: You know. The rehabilitation component sounds good in theory, but
• 15:58
  Speaker 7: practice that's not what's happening. But what is happening is
• 16:01
  Speaker 7: that you do have certain movements that, just like mine,
• 16:05
  Speaker 7: is looking outside into the system saying this is what's
• 16:07
  Speaker 7: missing and they're going to fill in that gap. So
• 16:10
  Speaker 7: I would have to shout out the college program I
• 16:12
  Speaker 7: graduated from, right, Bard Prison Initiatives, Right, this is a
• 16:15
  Speaker 7: program providing free liberal arts education for brothers inside, sisters inside.
• 16:18
  Speaker 7: Right Then, like is that always there? No, because after
• 16:22
  Speaker 7: ninety four with the Pelgram's taking away, right, yeah, they yeah,
• 16:25
  Speaker 7: exactly right, that wasn't available. And I'm gonna get to
• 16:28
  Speaker 7: the day to day stuff too to talk about. But
• 16:31
  Speaker 7: with elements like BPI, right, which is is privately funded.
• 16:34
  Speaker 7: This is a top liberal ar school in the US.
• 16:36
  Speaker 7: It cost two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to educate
• 16:38
  Speaker 7: one person, right, and they getting this money for free.
• 16:41
  Speaker 7: They've done graduate over a thousand incostrated learners what we
• 16:45
  Speaker 7: call them.
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 16:47
  Speaker 7: That program, it being in place, is really an exposure
• 16:50
  Speaker 7: for us to know that, oh it's the possibility. Right,
• 16:53
  Speaker 7: some places don't have that program. So what it looks
• 16:56
  Speaker 7: like is it has to be really where you at
• 16:57
  Speaker 7: as a person. And that's the one thing I learned
• 16:59
  Speaker 7: I want in that seven. I had my pitfalls. I
• 17:01
  Speaker 7: did box time, right, but I always was a curious learner.
• 17:04
  Speaker 7: I like to read, you know what I'm saying. And
• 17:06
  Speaker 7: at the time I was married, I was married in
• 17:08
  Speaker 7: prison young got married at eighteen and my wife at
• 17:10
  Speaker 7: the time, she was in college, graduated early two jobs, right,
• 17:13
  Speaker 7: she was shaken. So I was motivated to like match energy.
• 17:17
  Speaker 7: So I wanted to get my GED. So everything was
• 17:19
  Speaker 7: like self initiation, right, Like if you want to go,
• 17:22
  Speaker 7: get to go after it's ded. The GED program is ded,
• 17:24
  Speaker 7: but are they really going to help you pass? It's
• 17:26
  Speaker 7: really up to you. Then you have like outside programs
• 17:30
  Speaker 7: like PACE, HIV awareness programs, all turn to violence programs,
• 17:34
  Speaker 7: they're there, it's good for your learning and being around
• 17:36
  Speaker 7: brothers like I was, who are learners and want to build.
• 17:39
  Speaker 7: So that like, once those safe spaces are available, is
• 17:42
  Speaker 7: really up to you to end to them because they're
• 17:43
  Speaker 7: available for all.
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 17:45
  Speaker 7: The mandated programs is ged because and vocation. The vocation
• 17:51
  Speaker 7: they have electric heating and plumbing. Yeah, but it's not effective, right,
• 17:55
  Speaker 7: Like you go to those programs, you could just attend
• 17:58
  Speaker 7: and pretend and you literally passing, right, You're satisfying for
• 18:01
  Speaker 7: the state, the state. It's what it's missing is intentionality, right,
• 18:05
  Speaker 7: Because if it's intentional, it's gonna create spaces where people
• 18:09
  Speaker 7: are not just gonna want to come learn, but they
• 18:10
  Speaker 7: really gonna learn. Right, So everything is really upon you.
• 18:14
  Speaker 7: So on a day to day to answer your question directly, right,
• 18:17
  Speaker 7: it's broken up in three modules. At least in the state,
• 18:19
  Speaker 7: you got the morning after their nighttime module. Each module
• 18:22
  Speaker 7: has a rec time available, right. You can either go
• 18:24
  Speaker 7: to the wreck, or you can go to school stand
• 18:26
  Speaker 7: you're selling read or go to the law library. Right,
• 18:29
  Speaker 7: So it's really where your mind is at. And I
• 18:31
  Speaker 7: think early on, you know, shout out to a lot
• 18:33
  Speaker 7: of my big bros that were old school gangsters that
• 18:36
  Speaker 7: educated themselves and transformed their lives. Right, They made education
• 18:40
  Speaker 7: look good for me. Right, They still swaggy, they still
• 18:42
  Speaker 7: moving the yard, They well respected, but they in school.
• 18:45
  Speaker 7: And I think that exposure for me made me realize, like, yo,
• 18:48
  Speaker 7: that's the rot I want to be. So my day
• 18:51
  Speaker 7: to day was like, I'm gonna divide my three modules
• 18:53
  Speaker 7: up into ways that's gonna help me. While there's a
• 18:56
  Speaker 7: lot going on, it's walls going on, stabbings, gunning, knife fights.
• 19:00
  Speaker 7: At least everything's still happening. You just got to understand
• 19:02
  Speaker 7: what your role is in this.
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 19:04
  Speaker 7: There was five things I was taught to stay away
• 19:05
  Speaker 7: from in prison. You know what I'm saying. Don't interact
• 19:08
  Speaker 7: with police, no telling, don't play with the moves, no,
• 19:11
  Speaker 7: no gang violence, right, and don't sell drugs. Actually there's
• 19:15
  Speaker 7: six and don't gamble. Those six things is going to
• 19:17
  Speaker 7: lead to one outcome. Right, So me, I'm like, I'm
• 19:20
  Speaker 7: gonna workout and keep my head in the books and
• 19:23
  Speaker 7: just move militant. Right. So the way I viewed my
• 19:26
  Speaker 7: time was like investment into time and like what I
• 19:29
  Speaker 7: really wanted to be. Early on, I got told on
• 19:32
  Speaker 7: on my case, right, five people told on me so
• 19:34
  Speaker 7: I already knew the streets is not an option. Right.
• 19:37
  Speaker 7: Whatever I thought it was real, it's not real for
• 19:39
  Speaker 7: me no more.
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 19:40
  Speaker 7: So I start to look at my time like, god, damn,
• 19:42
  Speaker 7: I got thirteen years to do, like you know, and
• 19:44
  Speaker 7: I made some mistakes. I went to the box and
• 19:46
  Speaker 7: all that trying to like, you know, dibble and dabble.
• 19:49
  Speaker 7: And it was in that box time that really also
• 19:51
  Speaker 7: woke me up, like, yo, you haven't still learned, right,
• 19:53
  Speaker 7: you now? Solitary confinement right, you know it's the shoot
• 19:57
  Speaker 7: they call it or whatnot. And you you know, just
• 20:00
  Speaker 7: having a lot of time to myself made me start
• 20:02
  Speaker 7: to see, I'm gonna break my days up like this,
• 20:04
  Speaker 7: you know what I'm saying. When I'm going to the yard,
• 20:05
  Speaker 7: I'm gonna go call my people on the phone. I'm
• 20:08
  Speaker 7: gonna hit the shock, and I'm gonna go mingle with
• 20:10
  Speaker 7: the bros that I like minded. And from that structure,
• 20:13
  Speaker 7: it's like it looks different for everybody, you know what
• 20:15
  Speaker 7: I'm saying. Some some brothers are coming out there on
• 20:17
  Speaker 7: the phone all day. Some brothers are working out or
• 20:19
  Speaker 7: they're in the corner with their bros all day politic
• 20:21
  Speaker 7: and doing what they do, right, So with the limited
• 20:25
  Speaker 7: programming best successible, it's really up to you to make
• 20:28
  Speaker 7: it work for you, you know what I'm saying. Like
• 20:30
  Speaker 7: that's why they say don't do the time, you know,
• 20:32
  Speaker 7: don't let the time do you? You do the time?
• 20:34
  Speaker 7: You know what I'm saying. It's really like kind of
• 20:36
  Speaker 7: like giving you the position to be active with it
• 20:38
  Speaker 7: because you gotta do sing it for twenty years and
• 20:40
  Speaker 7: then get their ged. Then you gotta do sand for
• 20:42
  Speaker 7: twenty years, got their master's education. Right, So it's really
• 20:45
  Speaker 7: about what you really want to come out of it.
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: So what was it?
• 20:47
  Speaker 8: I mean it sounds like you have people to look
• 20:50
  Speaker 8: up to in there, right while either what was the
• 20:53
  Speaker 8: foundation or was there a foundation on the outside because
• 20:55
  Speaker 8: a lot of times this family is that affected by
• 20:58
  Speaker 8: going to your family's affect You said that obviously your
• 21:01
  Speaker 8: man is here, but what was that foundation? Like when
• 21:03
  Speaker 8: you go in, everybody it's LEO send you writing you.
• 21:06
  Speaker 8: But as time was on and progressives, we see that
• 21:08
  Speaker 8: all the time, like it's almost like a forgotten family member.
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: What was that like for you?
• 21:12
  Speaker 7: Yeah? No, I have to shout out my ex wife
• 21:14
  Speaker 7: on that one, right, you know, she was the most consistent,
• 21:17
  Speaker 7: and I had consistency in some family members like my
• 21:19
  Speaker 7: brother that was here and others. But you know, she
• 21:22
  Speaker 7: was the one kicking down the door when I was
• 21:24
  Speaker 7: five hours away. Right, She's the one that's sending me
• 21:27
  Speaker 7: cars letters every week.
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 21:28
  Speaker 7: So unfortunately, what you learn when you go away is
• 21:31
  Speaker 7: that family gonna love you, but they struggling too, you
• 21:33
  Speaker 7: know what I'm saying. And like you just came a
• 21:35
  Speaker 7: whole nother bill that they didn't ask for. So like
• 21:38
  Speaker 7: you learn that, like you become a liability, right, So
• 21:41
  Speaker 7: like you know, it's really when you had a mom
• 21:44
  Speaker 7: or falling position, and usually it's the mall that's knocking
• 21:47
  Speaker 7: down those doors. So my foundation was I had my
• 21:49
  Speaker 7: aunt you know, told my aunts that was you know,
• 21:51
  Speaker 7: shouting me out, some fam members checking for me here
• 21:54
  Speaker 7: and there. You know what I'm saying, Some of my
• 21:55
  Speaker 7: peoples and my bros Is coming to check me. But
• 21:58
  Speaker 7: my most consistences put for like my first five seven
• 22:00
  Speaker 7: years was my ex wife, to be honest, you know
• 22:02
  Speaker 7: what I mean, And it was I was fortunate to
• 22:05
  Speaker 7: have that. So everybody's foundation looks different too, right, Like
• 22:08
  Speaker 7: you might go to the visit room and you see
• 22:10
  Speaker 7: somebody his mom, brother, cousins, and aunt is there every week. Right,
• 22:13
  Speaker 7: Also depends where you at. When I was in sing Sing,
• 22:16
  Speaker 7: that's what twenty minutes away from the town, right, So
• 22:19
  Speaker 7: I'm getting more visits right than I was when I
• 22:21
  Speaker 7: was in Kasaki, a comstock. So it's like really about positioning.
• 22:25
  Speaker 7: I think my last three years is when I started
• 22:29
  Speaker 7: seeing my most support. But also I was also sending, like,
• 22:32
  Speaker 7: you know, evidence of of my growth. I was graduating,
• 22:36
  Speaker 7: I'm getting my degree now and inviting my folks to
• 22:39
  Speaker 7: come into the institution to come to my graduation. So
• 22:42
  Speaker 7: it's like everything now they hear me is something positive,
• 22:44
  Speaker 7: which I think encourage a lot of people to like
• 22:46
  Speaker 7: really believe in me, you know what I'm saying. So,
• 22:49
  Speaker 7: but that's kind of relative, but we do look at
• 22:51
  Speaker 7: it in a general sense. The foundation for everybody is different.
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: So when you start your nonprofit, right, what was the
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: steps to actually get that off the ground, end up
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: and running.
• 23:01
  Speaker 7: As a formal nonprofit or just like even starting.
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: It like both yeah, yeah, definitely the formal side. Want
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: to talk about that.
• 23:07
  Speaker 7: No, for sure, for sure. So basically for us, again,
• 23:11
  Speaker 7: it was just organizing so like you kind of got
• 23:13
  Speaker 7: to market the work unpaid and just do the work.
• 23:15
  Speaker 7: You're in the community doing it until you know. Actually,
• 23:19
  Speaker 7: a former county legislators like, yo, are you guys A
• 23:21
  Speaker 7: five and one C three? I didn't know what a
• 23:23
  Speaker 7: fither and one C three was. And for those who
• 23:25
  Speaker 7: don't know, that's the actual nonprofit tax bracket with you're
• 23:27
  Speaker 7: a tax exempt, right that's when you become an actual
• 23:30
  Speaker 7: public charity identified by the federal government that you are
• 23:34
  Speaker 7: a nonprofit. You could receive money, people could donate, and
• 23:37
  Speaker 7: it's a tax right off. We weren't even that. We
• 23:39
  Speaker 7: were just organizing, like we was leading with the heart right,
• 23:41
  Speaker 7: so we are in the community we putting on. That
• 23:44
  Speaker 7: was the first question I got that made me think about, like, yo,
• 23:47
  Speaker 7: I have to organize. The second question was from who's
• 23:50
  Speaker 7: the current mayor of Mount Running. We did a food
• 23:52
  Speaker 7: drive of her and she's like, yo, who are y'all?
• 23:54
  Speaker 7: Like you know what I mean, y'all out here putting on?
• 23:56
  Speaker 7: But who are y'all? And we have no real organized answer.
• 23:59
  Speaker 7: So it was me again like, nah, we gotta get
• 24:02
  Speaker 7: it together, like you know, And then I started thinking
• 24:04
  Speaker 7: about the name you know, what I mean that that's
• 24:05
  Speaker 7: when now I'm for united kind of life started to
• 24:07
  Speaker 7: come about. And I was fortunate too, so like in
• 24:11
  Speaker 7: the at the same time that we're doing this organizing work,
• 24:14
  Speaker 7: one of my board members now one of my bros
• 24:16
  Speaker 7: from high school, the mom but Drew. He was the
• 24:18
  Speaker 7: current executive director of his own nonprofiting youngkers. So he
• 24:21
  Speaker 7: was the one that actually like helped me, sat me
• 24:24
  Speaker 7: down and like, yo, this is how you become a
• 24:25
  Speaker 7: father one c. Three And he took me to the website, right,
• 24:29
  Speaker 7: and Legit sent me the link and it's a step
• 24:31
  Speaker 7: by step right, some people can hire zoom. I mean,
• 24:35
  Speaker 7: what's that called the legal zoom right to do all
• 24:37
  Speaker 7: of that, But I Legit took it. Mind you, everybody's
• 24:40
  Speaker 7: at home, right it's shut down. So had all the
• 24:42
  Speaker 7: time in the world, and I just took the steps.
• 24:45
  Speaker 7: And then we did the New York tax exempt to
• 24:47
  Speaker 7: be like to be exempting the sales for New York
• 24:50
  Speaker 7: an he purchases. We did that process, and then after
• 24:54
  Speaker 7: that was just about your brand, right, because now you're
• 24:57
  Speaker 7: like on documentation you are a nonprofit, but now how
• 25:00
  Speaker 7: do you build your brand? And that's something I just
• 25:03
  Speaker 7: learned along the way. And what help was that, you know,
• 25:06
  Speaker 7: being a formerly incarcerated, you know, person taking the leadership
• 25:09
  Speaker 7: role in the community. I think that was like kind
• 25:11
  Speaker 7: of seen as one of one, and that's how we
• 25:13
  Speaker 7: were getting called.
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 25:15
  Speaker 7: My first call was to speak at a Black Lives
• 25:18
  Speaker 7: Matter rally after George Floyd was you know, you know,
• 25:21
  Speaker 7: ustified to be killed. And I spoke in front of
• 25:24
  Speaker 7: a community of like eight hundred white folks in Hastings
• 25:27
  Speaker 7: for like five minutes, and I was talking about that issue,
• 25:31
  Speaker 7: and we raised five thousand dollars, right, And that took
• 25:34
  Speaker 7: that five thousand and put it back into the business, right,
• 25:37
  Speaker 7: And I had to develop a website, you know. From
• 25:40
  Speaker 7: there now I thinking about the marketing part of it.
• 25:42
  Speaker 7: I hired a contract and father and I'm working with
• 25:45
  Speaker 7: this dude from Bengali, Desh trying to figure out how
• 25:46
  Speaker 7: to you know, organize it and build the website. And
• 25:49
  Speaker 7: then I got another call Bronxville. Now these are like
• 25:52
  Speaker 7: affluent communities. They starting to hear about this individual in
• 25:55
  Speaker 7: this movement, and so it was like we became formalized
• 25:59
  Speaker 7: by becoming a five and one C three, but like
• 26:01
  Speaker 7: we really catapulted the movement was the odds that were
• 26:04
  Speaker 7: on us and then the opportunities that we took. And
• 26:06
  Speaker 7: each opportunity was like a training ground for me because
• 26:10
  Speaker 7: after the Bronxville speech, a real wealthy lady I didn't
• 26:14
  Speaker 7: know was wealthy, was like, Yo, who's your board of directors?
• 26:16
  Speaker 7: You know, how's your findings? I'm lost, right, I don't
• 26:19
  Speaker 7: understand the full dynamics. Sofe's new language to me. So
• 26:22
  Speaker 7: now it makes me pivot go back to Lamont, like, Yo,
• 26:25
  Speaker 7: how do we set this up? So it was like
• 26:27
  Speaker 7: we kind of put the car before the horse in
• 26:29
  Speaker 7: a way, right, Like we kind of like jumped in
• 26:31
  Speaker 7: and did the work led by the heart, and then
• 26:33
  Speaker 7: we had to kind of dial back and organize, you know.
• 26:36
  Speaker 7: And then one of the things that really really helped
• 26:38
  Speaker 7: me was, you know, knowing that the work I wanted
• 26:40
  Speaker 7: to do was around gun violence prevention and positive youth development.
• 26:44
  Speaker 7: I was looking for a job in that industry, right,
• 26:47
  Speaker 7: So I applied for Yanker's Family YMCA, but with the
• 26:51
  Speaker 7: intent of it being my training ground, Like this is
• 26:53
  Speaker 7: a nonprofit business. Now I'm going to learn nonprofit business
• 26:56
  Speaker 7: by working for a nonprofit business, and then I got
• 26:58
  Speaker 7: a kind of double reward where the nonprofit I was
• 27:01
  Speaker 7: working for is funded by a state agency. So now
• 27:04
  Speaker 7: I'm getting experiences with a state agency, right, which is
• 27:06
  Speaker 7: a whole nother bureaucratic structure that looks different. Right, protocol, hierarchy, relationships,
• 27:12
  Speaker 7: how information is shared. So I'm learning things in real
• 27:15
  Speaker 7: time at my job. But that was my intent. I
• 27:18
  Speaker 7: parked myself there with the intent of like, and then
• 27:20
  Speaker 7: I'm still building the nonprofit. We're still organizing. You know.
• 27:23
  Speaker 7: I actually got my first contract through all those movements
• 27:26
  Speaker 7: and meeting people during COVID. I got connected to who
• 27:29
  Speaker 7: was the former Deputy Commissioner, Louis Molina. He's now the
• 27:32
  Speaker 7: deputy the deputy of New York City. It's got his position,
• 27:37
  Speaker 7: but he's under Eric Adams now, and he got me
• 27:40
  Speaker 7: my first contract working inside the county jail. Right. So
• 27:43
  Speaker 7: now I'm going inside the institution and I'm using my
• 27:46
  Speaker 7: hourly contract money to run my programs in it. And
• 27:50
  Speaker 7: that's when everything start to come full circle. So now
• 27:52
  Speaker 7: I'm going the institution, I'm seeing what's missing. I'm working
• 27:54
  Speaker 7: for the nonprofit. I'm learning what's needed, and I'm also
• 27:58
  Speaker 7: doing my research on the side, understanding the dynamics I
• 28:00
  Speaker 7: got to pull into the nonprofit business. So it's kind
• 28:03
  Speaker 7: of like simultaneously three moving parts that helped us organize
• 28:06
  Speaker 7: and become officially a business entity.
• 28:08
  Speaker 8: You're building a plane and flying playing at the same time.
• 28:11
  Speaker 8: So this this is interesting because as you were speaking
• 28:13
  Speaker 8: and you're talking about branding and marketing, I'm thinking to myself,
• 28:17
  Speaker 8: thirteen years, if I go back, social media is not
• 28:22
  Speaker 8: even I mean, Facebook is probably around before you go you.
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: Get locked up.
• 28:25
  Speaker 7: I think my space space it was my sport.
• 28:30
  Speaker 8: Facebook's probably maybe only for college sus At the time
• 28:32
  Speaker 8: you come home and the landscape is completely different. What
• 28:37
  Speaker 8: was What was that like studying social media? Right, because
• 28:40
  Speaker 8: now it's it's Snapchat, it's Instagram, it's all these apps,
• 28:44
  Speaker 8: and you're like, I mean, I can imagine what that's like.
• 28:46
  Speaker 8: Like this is a whole new one.
• 28:48
  Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no for sure. On a personal level,
• 28:50
  Speaker 7: you know, my people's taught me what not to post
• 28:53
  Speaker 7: and to post, like, you know, I was posting stuff
• 28:56
  Speaker 7: I shouldn't be posting, Like I got my ID, so
• 28:58
  Speaker 7: think about it. I'm so excited I got my first
• 28:59
  Speaker 7: DAID idea and I post on agreement and bro like, yo, bro,
• 29:02
  Speaker 7: take that down. You got your address on it. So
• 29:05
  Speaker 7: we don't understand the dynamics of who's watching. So my peoples,
• 29:08
  Speaker 7: every time I will post something that's like the dudes
• 29:11
  Speaker 7: and don't, they'll pull me up and teach me informally. Right,
• 29:13
  Speaker 7: Also women too, right, you know, but on a personal
• 29:16
  Speaker 7: level when it comes to the branding part, Like I'm
• 29:18
  Speaker 7: not a social media expert, right, So, like I always
• 29:20
  Speaker 7: lean on the other experts in the field, and sometimes
• 29:23
  Speaker 7: we have volunteers or we have an intern. I currently
• 29:25
  Speaker 7: we have an intern now that's helping us without marketing
• 29:27
  Speaker 7: and branding or people who we contract to come help
• 29:30
  Speaker 7: us with certain projects. So that's how we've been able
• 29:33
  Speaker 7: to elevate our marketing. We're trying to enhance the website
• 29:36
  Speaker 7: now it looks pretty good compared to what it was.
• 29:39
  Speaker 7: But leaning on you know, other experts. Like I'm a
• 29:42
  Speaker 7: big believer in delegation, right, Like I can't do it
• 29:45
  Speaker 7: all right, Like I'm the vision there, I'm a strategic planner,
• 29:48
  Speaker 7: But delegating requires finding the right human resources, you know
• 29:52
  Speaker 7: what I'm saying, and then bringing them in and then
• 29:54
  Speaker 7: hopefully they can push your vision along. So that's how
• 29:56
  Speaker 7: I kind of like overtime, I just opened up a
• 29:59
  Speaker 7: Snapchat TikTok, right, trying to do my own thing with
• 30:02
  Speaker 7: my other page that I got in and it's it's tough,
• 30:04
  Speaker 7: it's it's a lot of like it's changing too fast.
• 30:09
  Speaker 5: So as far as a nonprofit, the business model behind nonprofit,
• 30:15
  Speaker 5: you still get to make money though, right, Like you
• 30:17
  Speaker 5: still got to live, right.
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: Of course, So how does that work?
• 30:20
  Speaker 5: Because people hear the work nonprofit and it's like, okay, everything,
• 30:23
  Speaker 5: it's like it's just a charity. Everything that comes in
• 30:26
  Speaker 5: goes out, but it's still a business. Yeah, yeah, explain
• 30:30
  Speaker 5: that as like it's easy to explain a for profit organization.
• 30:33
  Speaker 5: Everybody knows that. But the nonprofit, I think it's interesting.
• 30:37
  Speaker 5: It like it's a nonprofit but it's still a business
• 30:39
  Speaker 5: at the same time.
• 30:39
  Speaker 7: Yeah, for sure, for sure. So the business part of
• 30:42
  Speaker 7: it just for the viewers, right, it's about like the
• 30:44
  Speaker 7: way it's broken up in its taxes, right, like the
• 30:46
  Speaker 7: entities is about the taxes is different, right, the way
• 30:48
  Speaker 7: it's broken up. The structure is the same, just a
• 30:51
  Speaker 7: different market, right. So the foot profit, I have to
• 30:54
  Speaker 7: say that you're selling a good to make a profit. Right,
• 30:57
  Speaker 7: I sell you this candyball. I make money off that
• 30:59
  Speaker 7: candy ball. The nonprofit is about providing a service that's
• 31:02
  Speaker 7: not being sold. I'm not selling you my financial literacy program.
• 31:06
  Speaker 7: I'm not selling you my mentorship. Right, you're in the
• 31:07
  Speaker 7: program for free, but it's funded by that could be
• 31:11
  Speaker 7: a diverse pool. Right, So we have government funding right,
• 31:14
  Speaker 7: primary with a lot of nonprofits are funded by government.
• 31:16
  Speaker 7: And interestingly enough, you don't want to be funded by government, right,
• 31:19
  Speaker 7: because it's not guaranteed. Political shift happen, you lose that money. Private,
• 31:24
  Speaker 7: you have private donors, people who own companies, people are
• 31:27
  Speaker 7: well wealthy that love the calls you're doing. They want
• 31:29
  Speaker 7: to donate, contribute. There's a diverse corporate right, fundraises, crowdfunding,
• 31:35
  Speaker 7: so all of that money really goes towards your budget,
• 31:37
  Speaker 7: the same way of foot profits are set up.
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 31:39
  Speaker 7: Everyone has expenses, Right, you have rent, you got utilities,
• 31:42
  Speaker 7: you got galery, salary. That's where the money comes in.
• 31:45
  Speaker 7: So I'm salaried as a CEO of my company. Right,
• 31:48
  Speaker 7: I started off unpaid. Right, And that's the part with
• 31:50
  Speaker 7: the nonprofit. Like some businesses too, that you have to
• 31:52
  Speaker 7: start unpaid build it. And the way we grew was
• 31:55
  Speaker 7: uniquely because we started like as contractors, Me and my team. Right,
• 32:00
  Speaker 7: I got two or three brothers that join the movement
• 32:01
  Speaker 7: that came home. Right half my team got over one
• 32:04
  Speaker 7: hundred tears in prison. FYI, Like, we all came from
• 32:06
  Speaker 7: the same fed state in county. So they all love
• 32:08
  Speaker 7: them noble movement. They jump on board. So what happened
• 32:11
  Speaker 7: was people starting to see us and they're like, yo,
• 32:13
  Speaker 7: can you run this program? Our first program was Manhood
• 32:16
  Speaker 7: What was it called the Manhood Training? Right? It was
• 32:19
  Speaker 7: an eight week program and it was focused on adulthood
• 32:21
  Speaker 7: and life skills and communications, and we went into the
• 32:23
  Speaker 7: youth Shelter of Mount Vernon. You know, shout out to
• 32:26
  Speaker 7: the youth shelter. They gave us one of our first
• 32:27
  Speaker 7: contracts to run program. That's how we started, right, what
• 32:30
  Speaker 7: they're paying for the program X amount of money. Al Right,
• 32:33
  Speaker 7: you come run, you do two workshops. I pay for
• 32:35
  Speaker 7: those two workshops. And we just started like building financial
• 32:38
  Speaker 7: systems based on contracts. Then it got a little deeper
• 32:41
  Speaker 7: when grants come in. She had a grant from a
• 32:43
  Speaker 7: government and they're like, hey, you get this X amount
• 32:46
  Speaker 7: of money. In this particular first experience, it was a
• 32:48
  Speaker 7: reimbursement grant, so you have to spend the money in
• 32:52
  Speaker 7: order to get it back, right. So all of that
• 32:55
  Speaker 7: taught me how to do budgets spreadsheets right like from
• 32:58
  Speaker 7: the very beginning, and it worked out because it wasn't.
• 33:01
  Speaker 7: I turned down a lot of money, by the way,
• 33:02
  Speaker 7: right in the early parts of my career because I
• 33:05
  Speaker 7: didn't want to do too much and then not be
• 33:07
  Speaker 7: able to have the infrastructure to maintain it. You collapsed
• 33:10
  Speaker 7: like that. So I took each opportunity intentionally if it
• 33:13
  Speaker 7: was aligned with my values and my mission, which is
• 33:15
  Speaker 7: very important with the business and nonprofit can't chase the money,
• 33:18
  Speaker 7: you got to chase the mission because sometimes the dollar
• 33:21
  Speaker 7: is tied to somebody who's not aligned with your mission
• 33:24
  Speaker 7: on your values, and a lot of nonprofits go wrong
• 33:26
  Speaker 7: with that. They're looking at the dollars they needed for
• 33:28
  Speaker 7: expenses and then they you know, wrap themselves up and
• 33:30
  Speaker 7: they can't produce. In our case, it was like we
• 33:33
  Speaker 7: kind of like started to not put the car before
• 33:35
  Speaker 7: the host started walking. You know, we crawled. Now we're walking,
• 33:38
  Speaker 7: and then we started slowly running and with the nonprofit
• 33:41
  Speaker 7: game was just understanding how to diversify your income right,
• 33:44
  Speaker 7: diversify your portfolio right, how to get corporate funders, how
• 33:48
  Speaker 7: to get foundation money, how to get you know, crowdfunding,
• 33:51
  Speaker 7: fundraisers money, how to get government money, and then looking
• 33:54
  Speaker 7: at that money that the money's coming in, tying it
• 33:57
  Speaker 7: to the budget. And that's where salaries, insurance build, I
• 34:00
  Speaker 7: mean your utilities, anything that you have as an expense
• 34:03
  Speaker 7: for your nonprofit. Hope, I kind of answered that.
• 34:06
  Speaker 8: You said you had to as a CEO. Did you
• 34:09
  Speaker 8: built the Border Directors? How did you go about choosing that?
• 34:11
  Speaker 8: And then you said that obviously the team has been incarcerated.
• 34:15
  Speaker 8: How you go about so that then who's going to
• 34:17
  Speaker 8: be a good fit to now join your own this mission?
• 34:19
  Speaker 7: I know for sure? For sure for the Border Directors,
• 34:22
  Speaker 7: it started with Laman Withdrew right, he was off because
• 34:24
  Speaker 7: he was our first fiscal sponsor. So that check that
• 34:26
  Speaker 7: we got for five thousand, we couldn't take it because
• 34:28
  Speaker 7: we wasn't a five O one C three yet. So fiscal
• 34:30
  Speaker 7: sponsors are like other more established nonprofits that to take
• 34:33
  Speaker 7: that money pass it through their bank account to you,
• 34:36
  Speaker 7: because then that check the person who wrote the check
• 34:39
  Speaker 7: to that it went to a nonprofit, right had to
• 34:41
  Speaker 7: be a five on C three. So him being our
• 34:42
  Speaker 7: fiscal sponsor and being somebody that was, you know, helping
• 34:45
  Speaker 7: us build the business. He was our first board member, right,
• 34:49
  Speaker 7: and then we you know, at the time, we were
• 34:51
  Speaker 7: selecting people who was helping us on the ground. But
• 34:53
  Speaker 7: it was like, I try to get people who are
• 34:56
  Speaker 7: are an expert in different spaces, whether in as cation,
• 35:00
  Speaker 7: whether in fundraising right, whether it's marketing right, operations to
• 35:04
  Speaker 7: contribute and pull back down into the organization. But it
• 35:06
  Speaker 7: never works like that. You find people that's dedicated, then
• 35:09
  Speaker 7: they're too busy, they got too many kids over the
• 35:11
  Speaker 7: family level, so they can't contribute. So we re ramped
• 35:13
  Speaker 7: the board in twenty twenty two going into twenty twenty
• 35:16
  Speaker 7: three and one person who's still we have actually five,
• 35:20
  Speaker 7: there's five board members right now. Me I'm the president.
• 35:23
  Speaker 7: The co founder is the board treasurer.
• 35:26
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• 37:16
  Speaker 1: An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from Al Salvador
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: accused of murdering a Texas. Man of Venezuelan charged with
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These are just
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: Donald J. Trump's leadership. I'm Christy nom the United States
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: Secretary of Homeland Security. Under President Trump, attempted illegal border
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: crossings are at the lowest levels ever recorded, and over
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: one hundred thousand illegal aliens have been arrested. If you
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: are here illegally, your next you will be fine nearly
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: one thousand dollars a day. Imprisoned and deported, you will
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: never return. But if you register using our CBP home
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: app and leave now you could be allowed to return
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: legally do what's right. Leave now under President Trump America's laws,
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: border and families.
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: Will be protected sponsored by the United States Department of
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: Homeland Security.
• 38:17
  Speaker 7: Then we have an advisor and two secretaries. And the
• 38:21
  Speaker 7: other two besides Lamont, we met them through just networking
• 38:24
  Speaker 7: and they had the skill set that we needed, which
• 38:27
  Speaker 7: is understanding nonprofit business, understanding operations right. Other ones worked
• 38:31
  Speaker 7: in correction facilities. You understand program and leadership development. So
• 38:35
  Speaker 7: we started to select people based on how are they
• 38:38
  Speaker 7: tied to the mission and what do they bring to
• 38:39
  Speaker 7: the table. And right now with that small team, we're
• 38:42
  Speaker 7: starting over because we're literally formalizing the board process on
• 38:47
  Speaker 7: what recruitment strategy looks like. Right, we had to enhance
• 38:51
  Speaker 7: our by laws. Right, the bylaws is the governance structure
• 38:53
  Speaker 7: of the nonprofit. We're literally working with three different law
• 38:57
  Speaker 7: firms to tighten up some of the back and doc
• 39:00
  Speaker 7: imentation such as the by laws. And that by laws
• 39:03
  Speaker 7: is going to dictate how we recruit new board members.
• 39:06
  Speaker 7: So while that's being developed by a legal consulting firm,
• 39:09
  Speaker 7: we're working with the board to make sure our strategy
• 39:11
  Speaker 7: is in line with the buy laws and it's really
• 39:14
  Speaker 7: you want to target people who's going to bring to
• 39:16
  Speaker 7: the organization. They're volunteering their time, but you want people
• 39:19
  Speaker 7: who's going to bring in money, bringing resources, bringing connections
• 39:22
  Speaker 7: and also information. Right, So we're still in that development phase.
• 39:26
  Speaker 7: When it came to the team, it happened through me
• 39:31
  Speaker 7: knowing individuals from serving time with them and them returning
• 39:34
  Speaker 7: home and reaching out asking for the opportunity, and then
• 39:37
  Speaker 7: it just kind of working out at the right time.
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 39:40
  Speaker 7: That was like an unstructured way that we recruited of
• 39:43
  Speaker 7: course with intention, right, like you know. Now, so now
• 39:48
  Speaker 7: the whole team is forming cost for only half the team.
• 39:50
  Speaker 7: We have women on our team that's been impacted by
• 39:52
  Speaker 7: the system indirectly that got you know, different careers that
• 39:55
  Speaker 7: contribute to the movement. But now we have a actually
• 39:58
  Speaker 7: HR department is in we're developing an HR system where
• 40:01
  Speaker 7: we're doing onboarding more for more and more corporate. But
• 40:04
  Speaker 7: there's a caveat that we are keeping with the organization
• 40:07
  Speaker 7: and that's the voting process. So I like member led
• 40:10
  Speaker 7: organizations right where my team has to say so on
• 40:12
  Speaker 7: how certain things process. Right, So one of the last
• 40:16
  Speaker 7: two excuse me, the last two members we had. We
• 40:19
  Speaker 7: did a panel discussion, right, so, and it's somebody I
• 40:22
  Speaker 7: was up north with, master grad bilingual, solid brother, well intellectual.
• 40:27
  Speaker 7: He brought so much to the table, but I knew
• 40:29
  Speaker 7: he just came home. We got to kind of groom him,
• 40:32
  Speaker 7: and that's how we start to do it. We like
• 40:33
  Speaker 7: his take an opportunity at Woodfield. They'll build their like
• 40:36
  Speaker 7: kind of experiences working with the population. We kind of
• 40:39
  Speaker 7: observe them, We put them in spaces to kind of
• 40:41
  Speaker 7: get them a job of the team, and then we like, Yo,
• 40:44
  Speaker 7: this person's dedicated. This person actually brings a lot to
• 40:46
  Speaker 7: the table, and they bring diversity. That's the other key, diversity.
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 40:50
  Speaker 7: So then from there, if we feel like, yeah, we
• 40:53
  Speaker 7: want to vote them in, we'll do a panel meeting
• 40:55
  Speaker 7: with the person and I'll have the whole team. Could
• 40:57
  Speaker 7: be a little intimid dating, but it's more like just
• 40:59
  Speaker 7: really interviewing you about your interests in this movement, right,
• 41:03
  Speaker 7: because we don't call it a nonprofit or a company
• 41:05
  Speaker 7: or job. We a movement. So there's you know, company
• 41:08
  Speaker 7: values and cultures that we have to talk about and
• 41:10
  Speaker 7: how do you like assimilate into that is what we
• 41:12
  Speaker 7: try to figure out. And fortunately, you know, we have
• 41:16
  Speaker 7: a team of thirteen right now. You know, again I
• 41:19
  Speaker 7: said half my team did a lot of time. Five
• 41:21
  Speaker 7: of them have former gang experience from Cribs, Bloods Line
• 41:24
  Speaker 7: and Kingston th Adios to you know, I think no Blood,
• 41:28
  Speaker 7: so like they all were gang leaders in their own way.
• 41:31
  Speaker 7: So now they use that to go back into the
• 41:33
  Speaker 7: institutions working with the young kids who are gang banging.
• 41:36
  Speaker 7: So the diversity kind of worked out, but the cherry
• 41:39
  Speaker 7: picking comes in with who were bringing in and why.
• 41:42
  Speaker 7: And now we're just going to implement the more like
• 41:45
  Speaker 7: formal process of it because you need a HR. I
• 41:47
  Speaker 7: have to remove myself from also the interviewing process just
• 41:50
  Speaker 7: to some degree to offset any liabilities, you know what
• 41:53
  Speaker 7: I'm saying. So it's more member led, but now we're
• 41:56
  Speaker 7: bringing them more corporate structure.
• 41:58
  Speaker 5: So you said, like nonprofit, the lifeline is fundraising, right,
• 42:03
  Speaker 5: you have to be able to get money, and you
• 42:04
  Speaker 5: said government is not the best source to get money,
• 42:06
  Speaker 5: so it's private donors. But that's also very challenging, right
• 42:10
  Speaker 5: to kind of like always it's not not guaranteed either
• 42:13
  Speaker 5: that you want to get a stream. So how has
• 42:15
  Speaker 5: it been for you as far as fundraising? What are
• 42:17
  Speaker 5: some challenges and what are some best practices that you learn?
• 42:20
  Speaker 7: For sure? For sure? So right now we have a strategy,
• 42:24
  Speaker 7: So I started implementing strategic planning. Right. The strategic plan,
• 42:28
  Speaker 7: like I said earlier, is based on your needs assessment, right,
• 42:31
  Speaker 7: so we look at what do we need in the
• 42:32
  Speaker 7: organization and then okay, we need this and how we're
• 42:34
  Speaker 7: going to get it right. So what we did was
• 42:37
  Speaker 7: this year we have three approaches. So we have a
• 42:41
  Speaker 7: grant writer that we contract. So this grant writer spends
• 42:44
  Speaker 7: time in the library because they have a source called
• 42:47
  Speaker 7: Foundational Directory, and it's a free database that tells you
• 42:50
  Speaker 7: all the grants are that companies pay for that but
• 42:53
  Speaker 7: at the libraries for free. Right, So he'll spend hours
• 42:56
  Speaker 7: there and research and finding grants that align with our mission.
• 42:59
  Speaker 7: He presented to me and say, yo, this is a
• 43:01
  Speaker 7: good grant to go after. We'll have several meetings on
• 43:04
  Speaker 7: it talking about budgets, how'sing aligned with my current mission
• 43:07
  Speaker 7: and budget, and then he's going after them. Right. So
• 43:10
  Speaker 7: that's one approach. The other approach is more like a
• 43:12
  Speaker 7: traditional model corporate outreach.
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 43:15
  Speaker 7: So I was fortunately through one of my donors, so
• 43:17
  Speaker 7: we have some secure donuts from last year that gave
• 43:19
  Speaker 7: us a lot of money. He gave me a list
• 43:22
  Speaker 7: of like over five hundred companies throughout the US worth
• 43:24
  Speaker 7: up to seven billion dollars. Right. His company is based
• 43:28
  Speaker 7: on cold calling. That's what we're doing, right. We have
• 43:30
  Speaker 7: a team. My team is dedicated some of their hours
• 43:32
  Speaker 7: a week to cod calling those companies to introduce us,
• 43:35
  Speaker 7: share our mission and hopefully build relationships. So when it
• 43:38
  Speaker 7: comes to money and outreach, it's about relationship building, as
• 43:41
  Speaker 7: y'all know, right, So that's what that That's one approach
• 43:44
  Speaker 7: that we want to measure too to see if it's
• 43:46
  Speaker 7: even effective. Is the waste of time? Is it working?
• 43:49
  Speaker 7: So we're doing that to raise money. And then crowdfunding,
• 43:51
  Speaker 7: right is another thing through online campaigns, social media, right,
• 43:55
  Speaker 7: go fund me and things like that for specific things.
• 43:58
  Speaker 7: And then on what we did last year which was
• 44:00
  Speaker 7: really really interesting. It was our first one, which was
• 44:03
  Speaker 7: our first fundraiser gala. Right, the goal was fifty thousand.
• 44:06
  Speaker 7: We walked away with sixty eight thousand dollars in the
• 44:08
  Speaker 7: first night, you know, shout out the styles p came
• 44:10
  Speaker 7: as a guest speaker. We had four hundred and thirty
• 44:13
  Speaker 7: two people in the building. First fundraiser, right, and that's
• 44:17
  Speaker 7: how you raise money. You sell tickets, you get you
• 44:19
  Speaker 7: get a venue space, right, you market the tickets. You
• 44:22
  Speaker 7: use the money for non profit, but to invest back
• 44:25
  Speaker 7: into the company. The money that we raised for that fundraiser.
• 44:28
  Speaker 7: The goal was our first office, and we just you know,
• 44:30
  Speaker 7: signed the commercial lease in February and we finally moved
• 44:33
  Speaker 7: in and up and running. So those are the ways
• 44:36
  Speaker 7: in which now you have to think about getting money
• 44:37
  Speaker 7: for the nonprofit because if you the goal for every
• 44:41
  Speaker 7: nonprofit is to try to secure consistent donors. Even if
• 44:44
  Speaker 7: one person give me five hundred a week, I mean
• 44:46
  Speaker 7: a year, one persce giving fifty thousand a year, you
• 44:49
  Speaker 7: got to count all of that money, right, while still
• 44:51
  Speaker 7: going after grants, you still need government funding, right, And
• 44:54
  Speaker 7: then what kind of put me in position was a
• 44:57
  Speaker 7: unique opportunity. So Executive Order two eleven by Governor hoku
• 45:01
  Speaker 7: uh you know, it was announced in twenty twenty two
• 45:04
  Speaker 7: as a result of gun violence. So a lot of money.
• 45:07
  Speaker 7: GVP is a buzzword right now, gun violence prevention, Right,
• 45:10
  Speaker 7: you know a lot of people going after it. That
• 45:12
  Speaker 7: money was a lot of money. About twenty million dollars
• 45:14
  Speaker 7: was pulled into an initiative called Project Rids. So Project
• 45:18
  Speaker 7: Rise was a new approach to funding nonprofits from the state.
• 45:23
  Speaker 7: It was never done this way right, where they was
• 45:25
  Speaker 7: giving you the money upfront. Right, So we applied, we
• 45:28
  Speaker 7: got accepted. We were like one of like five nonprofits
• 45:31
  Speaker 7: in Yonkers that got it, and we got a nice chunk,
• 45:34
  Speaker 7: which played a major role in me going full time. Right,
• 45:37
  Speaker 7: So now we got part time staff members, I got
• 45:40
  Speaker 7: I'm a full time staff member. I got volunteers, and
• 45:42
  Speaker 7: I got paid per DM. So that's as I need them. Right,
• 45:45
  Speaker 7: you go into a per contract. So we've diversified our
• 45:49
  Speaker 7: money by using the state money, the contract money, the crowdfunding,
• 45:52
  Speaker 7: the fundraiser to now pay all the stuff that we
• 45:55
  Speaker 7: need for the company.
• 45:56
  Speaker 5: Your question, so it's like, is there like a test
• 45:58
  Speaker 5: or like a limit, Like is there a rule because
• 46:00
  Speaker 5: let's say hyperthink they.
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: Have a nonprofit. I raised five million dollars, right.
• 46:05
  Speaker 5: I have to use because like somebody could just depositive
• 46:09
  Speaker 5: in their bank account. Right, So it's like, is there
• 46:11
  Speaker 5: a rule to be like Okay, if eighty percent of
• 46:13
  Speaker 5: the money that you raise, you have to deploy in
• 46:18
  Speaker 5: the course of eighteen months.
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: Like how did they track that? Yeah?
• 46:21
  Speaker 7: No, So when you do your own fund raiser, you
• 46:23
  Speaker 7: determine that, right unless a donor that's giving you x
• 46:25
  Speaker 7: amount of money says, this money's for this, So the
• 46:28
  Speaker 7: donor could determine like this is for your rent only.
• 46:30
  Speaker 7: You can't spend this on program expenses, for example, you
• 46:33
  Speaker 7: can't spend it on food for the office. Right. So
• 46:36
  Speaker 7: that's how one stipulation comes in with the project. Like
• 46:39
  Speaker 7: when it comes to state funding, is ready controlling, right,
• 46:42
  Speaker 7: you have a budget, a proposed budget that you have
• 46:45
  Speaker 7: to actually adhere to, right, so that money is controlled
• 46:48
  Speaker 7: in the timeline that you said you're going to spend
• 46:50
  Speaker 7: this money. They monitoring like whatever the case is when
• 46:53
  Speaker 7: you do your own fundraiser, like, you know, you got
• 46:55
  Speaker 7: to be authentic to your you know, your supporters, right.
• 46:58
  Speaker 7: Our goal was an off space, right, So when we
• 47:01
  Speaker 7: got the money, right, we didn't have no stipulations like
• 47:04
  Speaker 7: you gotta spend this money on the but we like
• 47:06
  Speaker 7: now y'all helped us raise money for the location. We're
• 47:08
  Speaker 7: going to get the location because we actually needed the location. Right,
• 47:11
  Speaker 7: So the stipulation varied depending on the grant that you're
• 47:14
  Speaker 7: going after. Right, some grants are unrestricted. So shout out
• 47:18
  Speaker 7: to Jay Jeff Bezos's wife. Hopefully she sees this man.
• 47:21
  Speaker 7: She's been running around dumping millions of dollars into nonprofits
• 47:26
  Speaker 7: unrestrictedly though, Like unrestricted is like, yo, do what you
• 47:29
  Speaker 7: need to do with it. There's no police reporting on it, right,
• 47:32
  Speaker 7: Like that's a nonprofit dream, you know.
• 47:35
  Speaker 8: So she just announced that like six.
• 47:38
  Speaker 7: Billion she's yeah, she's putting on right now.
• 47:40
  Speaker 8: She's I think New York State was the first place
• 47:42
  Speaker 8: she looked first, and it was I think she's looking
• 47:45
  Speaker 8: for like something crazy number of nonprofits.
• 47:48
  Speaker 7: Yeah, no, and her process is hard to even find
• 47:51
  Speaker 7: she did. They have to find you. So hopefully they
• 47:52
  Speaker 7: find out one for United but no for sure for sure.
• 47:56
  Speaker 7: But the unrestricted comes from you know, noble individuals with
• 47:59
  Speaker 7: a lot of money that it's like, y'all love what
• 48:00
  Speaker 7: you're doing, We trust your work, but this is something
• 48:03
  Speaker 7: good for all business owners. Right, your finances have to
• 48:05
  Speaker 7: be in order, right, Like part of what got us
• 48:07
  Speaker 7: the location, part of us what got us into these
• 48:09
  Speaker 7: A lot of these deals. Grant writers, I mean grant providers,
• 48:12
  Speaker 7: they want to see your finances sometimes. Right, there's something
• 48:15
  Speaker 7: called god Star. They have the IRS website that they
• 48:18
  Speaker 7: go look at and check how much went to program
• 48:20
  Speaker 7: and how much went to salaries. Right, some of them
• 48:22
  Speaker 7: care about those like little details. But your books, your
• 48:27
  Speaker 7: financial story is your engine for the organization, specifically for
• 48:30
  Speaker 7: a nonproduct because people are giving you money. Right. So,
• 48:33
  Speaker 7: like what we've been working on, which is a financial project,
• 48:35
  Speaker 7: is getting audit ready. That's what we call it, right,
• 48:38
  Speaker 7: getting audit ready, making sure that when any funder, hopefully
• 48:42
  Speaker 7: real wealthy fund that wants to see our financial story,
• 48:44
  Speaker 7: it aligns. Right, there's no disconnect.
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: So that's that's what I'm getting at.
• 48:49
  Speaker 5: So all right, you audit ready, so if somebody wants
• 48:52
  Speaker 5: to pull your records, they can see, okay, just amount
• 48:56
  Speaker 5: of money when here? This amount of money when exactly,
• 48:58
  Speaker 5: So if you're doing through diligence, even for the public
• 49:01
  Speaker 5: to know, like if they if they want to give
• 49:03
  Speaker 5: money to a nonprofit but they're not sure about if
• 49:07
  Speaker 5: the money's actually going to go to help people, like
• 49:11
  Speaker 5: they can actually look to see financial records.
• 49:14
  Speaker 7: Yeah the IRS. If not the irs. There's something called Godstar.
• 49:19
  Speaker 7: So Godstar has like certain seals like platinum gold bronds.
• 49:24
  Speaker 7: The more transparent you are on god Star, the higher
• 49:27
  Speaker 7: the seal you get. So if you show them like
• 49:29
  Speaker 7: your breakdown of your board, the ethnical breakdown, who you serve,
• 49:32
  Speaker 7: your team, your finances, you gotta publish your ten ninety,
• 49:34
  Speaker 7: I mean your nine nineties every year. You have to
• 49:37
  Speaker 7: publish that, right so they can see your finances, so
• 49:40
  Speaker 7: that you know, and if they don't, Like I had
• 49:41
  Speaker 7: a funder who in the shout outs to Bronze with
• 49:43
  Speaker 7: Rotary Club, you know, they was on it, like looking
• 49:46
  Speaker 7: to the finance. Let me see with this why you
• 49:47
  Speaker 7: don't have this on god Star. It was some like
• 49:49
  Speaker 7: steps that we overlooked and he was like intentional and
• 49:52
  Speaker 7: he's like, yo, you guys are doing the right thing.
• 49:54
  Speaker 7: So once you build that trust with your finances, everything
• 49:57
  Speaker 7: else is like just you know.
• 49:58
  Speaker 8: What are some of the big challenges obviously the money
• 50:01
  Speaker 8: raising the money figuring out how to get it, But
• 50:03
  Speaker 8: what are some of those challenges that people who are
• 50:06
  Speaker 8: not familiar with the space, What are the things that
• 50:08
  Speaker 8: they should know that you face, right, Like that that
• 50:10
  Speaker 8: is something that somebody puts you on. What are some
• 50:12
  Speaker 8: other challenges if we get into the space.
• 50:16
  Speaker 7: Put the politics right? The politics is tough, right, and
• 50:21
  Speaker 7: I just want to touch on something. You're action the
• 50:23
  Speaker 7: answer to the challenging part, right, So me being a
• 50:25
  Speaker 7: full time CEO, right, just to talk about the executive
• 50:28
  Speaker 7: two eleven, they're talking about taking it off the table, right,
• 50:30
  Speaker 7: So imagine a fund is like here for three is
• 50:33
  Speaker 7: you good in your first shit? They're like, oh, hold on,
• 50:35
  Speaker 7: some political things are going on. Gotta take it off
• 50:37
  Speaker 7: the table. Now. I got to think about how mama
• 50:39
  Speaker 7: cover my salary. Now, I gotta like pivot and I
• 50:41
  Speaker 7: gotta work over time because you know, June come, I
• 50:44
  Speaker 7: might not have a salary.
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 50:46
  Speaker 7: So those challenges are about having a strategy in place
• 50:48
  Speaker 7: to pivot the things that you don't see, and that's
• 50:51
  Speaker 7: always hard, right. But there's many challenges with this work.
• 50:55
  Speaker 7: When it comes to fundraising, it's about how you build
• 50:57
  Speaker 7: relationships and with who. So that's the political part of it, right,
• 51:00
  Speaker 7: Like you know this campaign season, so even like some
• 51:04
  Speaker 7: partners of mine that I really job with, you know, politically,
• 51:07
  Speaker 7: I can't take open stances with you because the five
• 51:10
  Speaker 7: oh one C three guidelines is that if I endorse
• 51:12
  Speaker 7: a politician, we get dissolved, right, And what does endorsement
• 51:17
  Speaker 7: look like? It could be them taking your swag and
• 51:19
  Speaker 7: posting on their page that they was at your event.
• 51:21
  Speaker 7: It could be you taking a picture with them and
• 51:24
  Speaker 7: it's you know, framed a certain way. So you have
• 51:26
  Speaker 7: to be real careful, right. So and then it's like
• 51:29
  Speaker 7: a lot of the challenge you see is that you
• 51:31
  Speaker 7: cannot separate community service from the political sphere. They go
• 51:34
  Speaker 7: hand in hand. So now you got to deal with
• 51:37
  Speaker 7: politicians who really don't believe in what you believe in, right,
• 51:40
  Speaker 7: And that's some of the things I'm working on, like
• 51:41
  Speaker 7: emotional intelligence, right, like how to navigate these spaces, you know,
• 51:45
  Speaker 7: because I got that rebel in me, but I'm also
• 51:47
  Speaker 7: going through refinement. I ain't got a little figured out,
• 51:49
  Speaker 7: and there's times that I'm in a space and it's
• 51:50
  Speaker 7: like I really want to talk how I feel, but
• 51:52
  Speaker 7: I can't. And leadership is about your brand ambassadorship, right,
• 51:56
  Speaker 7: Like what are you representing online and offline because people
• 51:59
  Speaker 7: are watching, you know, And so those challenges about policing yourself,
• 52:03
  Speaker 7: you know, being careful where you hanging out, at how
• 52:05
  Speaker 7: you moving offline and online, but who you really deal
• 52:08
  Speaker 7: with because your brand can be separate from who you are,
• 52:12
  Speaker 7: you know what I'm saying, So if again have to
• 52:15
  Speaker 7: navigate those Even now I'm doing my grand opening for
• 52:17
  Speaker 7: the NOMAL for Space and I'm like, who do I invite?
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 52:20
  Speaker 7: Like, it gets tricky because you don't want to feel
• 52:22
  Speaker 7: like your favorite time. You know you're showing favoritism to
• 52:24
  Speaker 7: one politician or another, you know, because that might just
• 52:26
  Speaker 7: be you got a close relationship with this person, but
• 52:29
  Speaker 7: they don't understand that because they runt against each other.
• 52:31
  Speaker 7: So now if he gets here, she gets a position,
• 52:33
  Speaker 7: they like, yeah, we ection you out of this money
• 52:35
  Speaker 7: that we you know, you could have had had you
• 52:36
  Speaker 7: voted for us or you to show to support. So
• 52:39
  Speaker 7: like being intentional with who you support and how you support,
• 52:43
  Speaker 7: which leads to another problem and challenge is how do
• 52:45
  Speaker 7: you focus on internally and externally the internal part of
• 52:49
  Speaker 7: the organization learning finance, management, learning how to manage a
• 52:52
  Speaker 7: team as you grow, learning how to manage new systems
• 52:55
  Speaker 7: that you need, HR consultants, learning all of that, and
• 52:58
  Speaker 7: then the external pressures of we had this event, can
• 53:00
  Speaker 7: you come support? Oh, Hey, can you do this or
• 53:02
  Speaker 7: we want to do a collaboration or can you come
• 53:04
  Speaker 7: to this? Like it's a lot of like just being
• 53:07
  Speaker 7: pulled tuggle wall from two different directions, you know, and
• 53:11
  Speaker 7: those challenges are ready exhausting. But I think if you
• 53:13
  Speaker 7: stay true to your needs right and your mission, everything
• 53:17
  Speaker 7: else is going to follow.
• 53:18
  Speaker 8: What about the challenge of alluded to emotional intelligence? You're
• 53:23
  Speaker 8: a full time entrepreneur, You're in an organization, but you
• 53:26
  Speaker 8: also have a personal side, right, So like, how are
• 53:28
  Speaker 8: you managing that?
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: Is?
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: I know you mentioned therapy.
• 53:31
  Speaker 8: Is that something that goes on a continuing basis? Like,
• 53:33
  Speaker 8: how are you managing this? Because I mean it's new
• 53:37
  Speaker 8: a lot of people. Entrepreneurship is new for sure, and
• 53:40
  Speaker 8: there's no book on how to handle it, right, there's
• 53:42
  Speaker 8: ups and downs. How would you manage it?
• 53:44
  Speaker 7: Yeah? No, for sure. Well I'm literally seeing therapy right
• 53:47
  Speaker 7: every Monday, every Monday evening. I got a good brother
• 53:50
  Speaker 7: that you know, gives me great perspective on my life.
• 53:53
  Speaker 7: So therapy is one of my outlets. Also a lot
• 53:55
  Speaker 7: of trainings right even for me and my team, we
• 53:59
  Speaker 7: actually are implementing. Uh, it's something that we do for
• 54:03
  Speaker 7: the youth when they're in distress. We're doing something for
• 54:05
  Speaker 7: the team, right to provide a safe space so that
• 54:08
  Speaker 7: when they come into this space, they have the village
• 54:10
  Speaker 7: to support them. Because as you said, right, like life
• 54:13
  Speaker 7: is lifing, Right, you got family, got loved ones. I
• 54:16
  Speaker 7: lost a lot of people. We lost a lot of
• 54:17
  Speaker 7: people in the last two year seven in counting. You
• 54:19
  Speaker 7: know what I'm saying, something to gun violence. So dealing
• 54:22
  Speaker 7: with those traumas, right, you need to just find a
• 54:24
  Speaker 7: way to outlet, like you need an outlet, right, So
• 54:26
  Speaker 7: beside us leaning on each other, therapy, and also learning
• 54:30
  Speaker 7: to just focus on my self care like slowing my
• 54:33
  Speaker 7: life down. I'm going to school full time right now.
• 54:35
  Speaker 7: That's another thing. Right, I'm in school full time and
• 54:37
  Speaker 7: running the organization, and life is lifing. So what I'm
• 54:41
  Speaker 7: learning is to try to find balance and just taking
• 54:43
  Speaker 7: time to myself, turn off my phone and just staying still.
• 54:48
  Speaker 7: So sometimes that helps, right, And then the other things
• 54:51
  Speaker 7: I mentioned, and just being a student of the game
• 54:54
  Speaker 7: and being humbled about it.
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: Man.
• 54:57
  Speaker 5: So as far as said, you had a nervous breakdown
• 55:01
  Speaker 5: or mental breakdown something.
• 55:03
  Speaker 7: Right, with nervous breakdown, a mental breakdown breakdown, but.
• 55:06
  Speaker 5: We never really compounded upon that. So, all right, as
• 55:09
  Speaker 5: far as that is concerned, right, talk about that. As
• 55:12
  Speaker 5: far as being incarcerated, what does that do to your
• 55:14
  Speaker 5: mental health? Like even being in solitary confinement, There's been
• 55:18
  Speaker 5: research said that I think like after like a couple
• 55:20
  Speaker 5: of days, like you kind of clinically start to deteriorate mentally,
• 55:25
  Speaker 5: like especially some people being the whole for six months,
• 55:28
  Speaker 5: like three months at a time, Like you know, it's
• 55:29
  Speaker 5: just like a lot of mental illness that comes from
• 55:34
  Speaker 5: isolation that comes from just being around men all day,
• 55:38
  Speaker 5: that comes from having trauma of seeing people killed in
• 55:41
  Speaker 5: front of you, stabbed in front of you, dealing with
• 55:44
  Speaker 5: CEOs that you know, abuse prisoners. It's a whole mental.
• 55:48
  Speaker 3: Aspect of this.
• 55:49
  Speaker 5: So we'll talk about the mental side effects of being incarcerated.
• 55:54
  Speaker 7: Yeah, So interestingly, segrais into what I was talking about
• 55:57
  Speaker 7: with the team with actually for those who serve time, right,
• 56:01
  Speaker 7: there's an article about the psychological impacts of prison, and
• 56:04
  Speaker 7: we're all dissecting that article and identifying ourselves in it.
• 56:08
  Speaker 7: So we're trying to build awareness of our trauma in
• 56:10
  Speaker 7: order to overcome it. That's another thing, right, but the
• 56:13
  Speaker 7: psychological impacts is deep.
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 56:15
  Speaker 7: I could go on and on, right, but for me,
• 56:18
  Speaker 7: you know, part of what just feeling like, the feeling
• 56:24
  Speaker 7: like its way so feeling like. So one of the
• 56:34
  Speaker 7: concepts is that like when you have served so much time, right,
• 56:37
  Speaker 7: you feel abnormal, Right, you come out into this world.
• 56:41
  Speaker 7: And I think part of my urge with building the
• 56:43
  Speaker 7: support group was to try to like be around like
• 56:46
  Speaker 7: minded people because there's this like otherness, this this concept
• 56:50
  Speaker 7: of the other.
• 56:50
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 56:51
  Speaker 7: You know, it's a lot of Afrile American scholars talked
• 56:53
  Speaker 7: about being the other in the white man's space, feeling
• 56:55
  Speaker 7: like the outside of the stranger. So the stranger concept
• 56:59
  Speaker 7: is that I walked with that a lot, right, you know,
• 57:01
  Speaker 7: being in spaces where I did thirteen years, someone around
• 57:03
  Speaker 7: men talking about traveling and they're like, I just can't dubai.
• 57:07
  Speaker 3: You feel like so uncomfortable.
• 57:09
  Speaker 7: Uncomfortable, you can't partake in the conversation, you can't relate, right,
• 57:12
  Speaker 7: you don't like you just did your whole thirteen years
• 57:14
  Speaker 7: and your adult years in prison, right, So is.
• 57:18
  Speaker 5: It some level of embarrassment, like you don't even want
• 57:20
  Speaker 5: to tell people that you were incarcerated type like.
• 57:23
  Speaker 7: Well, for me, some people do have that. They have
• 57:25
  Speaker 7: this shame of the identity. I owned it from this gate,
• 57:28
  Speaker 7: like it became my advantage. Actually, right, it became my
• 57:30
  Speaker 7: currency because some people didn't know I served time. Right,
• 57:33
  Speaker 7: I might've been working when I was at the fashion
• 57:35
  Speaker 7: production company. People were like, oh, you know you did
• 57:37
  Speaker 7: thirteen years. I would have never knew. So, like I
• 57:39
  Speaker 7: always didn't mind it. But some people are ashamed of
• 57:41
  Speaker 7: where they came from, so they keep it deep down inside,
• 57:44
  Speaker 7: you know.
• 57:45
  Speaker 5: But you know the guy that not to cut you off,
• 57:46
  Speaker 5: the guy that runs Jordan Brand, no history.
• 57:50
  Speaker 7: Nah.
• 57:50
  Speaker 5: So the guy that runs Jordan Brand, he he killed
• 57:54
  Speaker 5: somebody years ago and he went to jail for it.
• 57:58
  Speaker 5: But it was like a thing that nobody knew about.
• 58:00
  Speaker 5: So he worked his way obviously a very intelligent person,
• 58:03
  Speaker 5: he worked his way up the corporate ladder to the
• 58:05
  Speaker 5: point where the CEO of Jordan Brand, and it was
• 58:10
  Speaker 5: something that it haunted him not having.
• 58:13
  Speaker 3: Nobody knew about it. It was like a secret that nobody knew.
• 58:16
  Speaker 5: And he like recently, like last year, two years ago,
• 58:20
  Speaker 5: he wrote an article and that was like him coming
• 58:23
  Speaker 5: out and telling his past. But for twenty years nobody
• 58:27
  Speaker 5: knew his past history, so it was one of these things.
• 58:30
  Speaker 5: And like I said, he probably could have went to
• 58:32
  Speaker 5: the grave with it, right. I guess it was before
• 58:34
  Speaker 5: laws was so transparent where everything was you know, it
• 58:36
  Speaker 5: was probably like in the sixties or something. But he
• 58:40
  Speaker 5: didn't feel comfortable living a double life. He felt like
• 58:43
  Speaker 5: he just you know, like he had suppressed it and
• 58:46
  Speaker 5: he was just hiding it for so long that even
• 58:49
  Speaker 5: though nobody knew about it, it just was causing him
• 58:52
  Speaker 5: anxiety because he knew about it and he wanted it
• 58:55
  Speaker 5: to kind of get it off his chest.
• 58:57
  Speaker 7: Yeah. No, no, it's is deep on somehow, I'm blessed,
• 59:00
  Speaker 7: you know, by the grace of God in that way
• 59:02
  Speaker 7: where I was always okay with being vulnerable. You know
• 59:06
  Speaker 7: what I'm saying. I think that we're so guarded when
• 59:07
  Speaker 7: we come out that we want to like protect this
• 59:11
  Speaker 7: narrative and it's like, now, let people know who you are. Right.
• 59:14
  Speaker 7: So for me, I came home open to that, but
• 59:16
  Speaker 7: I never really felt like my people's understood me. Right,
• 59:19
  Speaker 7: So being the stranger, you know, there's times where like
• 59:22
  Speaker 7: I don't play with the hands. I was called too serious,
• 59:25
  Speaker 7: Oh you know, loosen up man, Like, you know what
• 59:27
  Speaker 7: I mean, you mad like on something, and it's like,
• 59:29
  Speaker 7: I just came from a hyper violent environment, right, so
• 59:32
  Speaker 7: like I can't just be flexible, and it took me
• 59:35
  Speaker 7: time to like loosen up to new faces trust issues.
• 59:38
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 59:39
  Speaker 7: I was questioning everybody in my bros to circle like nah,
• 59:41
  Speaker 7: like you know because of my own trauma people telling
• 59:44
  Speaker 7: So you start to generalize, and that's delusion, right, You
• 59:47
  Speaker 7: start to think everyone is who you experienced. That's like
• 59:49
  Speaker 7: literally delusion. And one of the biggest experiences I've remember
• 59:53
  Speaker 7: was being in barbershops, right, you know what I'm saying.
• 59:55
  Speaker 7: You behind the chair again, a lineup and one dude
• 59:58
  Speaker 7: pulled up. He was a former cop, that's the funny part,
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 7: pulled it with a hoodie on his hands in his pocket.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 7: I jumped up dumbfast, you know what I mean. I
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 7: just came home to a town that I took a
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 7: life from. Right. So those type of things where people
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 7: do understand your anxiety. Is the first time I hit
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 7: in New York City to go to a contract, I
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 7: seen like a heard of people and it's reminded me
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 7: of the yard, Like people won't know what you're walking through.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 7: People walking past you you like yo, you on super edge.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 7: So those moments made you feel abnormal, Like it made
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 7: you feel broken, you know what I'm saying. And it's
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 7: like what I learned was like accepting it that that's
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 7: a I'm scarred in that way. Right, It's not really
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 7: what happened, it's how I react to it because I
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 7: can't change the past now, right, It's how I move forward.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 7: But those type of things, man are constantly walking with us.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 7: And I was just speaking at on Pacer University yesterday
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 7: for the law school there, and I talked about the
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 7: symbolic baggage of trauma that we all walk with on
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 7: our backs, right, And I felt the heaviness of that
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 7: trauma when I was in the school. You know what
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 7: I'm saying. There was mad times I was in that school,
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 7: Brugie Elite school, and I felt like didn't I ain't
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 7: belong you know what I'm saying. It's like you feel
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 7: like the stranger. And that feeling is an internal thing,
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 7: you know what I'm saying. And to get even deeper,
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 7: you know, with your relationships, right, you know, some of
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 7: us got like you know, issues with our family, our
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 7: fathers or moms right, And if you know, I served
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 7: so much time as a kid, so like I learned
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 7: that the impact that prison had on me was like
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 7: the abandonment issue, right, you know, I ain't see people
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 7: for so long, so you have trust issues, you know,
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 7: in relationships, you see it come out right, and that's
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 7: where you need to understand the partner and you need
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 7: to be aware of your own triggers, you know. And
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 7: the good thing when I was working with the Why
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 7: on the DCJS, like I got to understand trauma informed
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 7: practices and how to like really like let go some
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 7: of the issues I was holding on too. So a
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 7: lot of it is just letting go and understanding that
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 7: it's there.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 7: A lot of us move into avoidance. A lot of men,
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 7: I know, even on my team, like you become so
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 7: self sufficient in prison that you come out here think
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 7: I do everything by yourself. And I'm like, that's a
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 7: trauma response, right, you don't realize you're not in prison
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 7: no more. Bro, You got the world out here, You
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 7: got people to call, you know what I'm saying. We
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 7: had a deep conversation the other day with a brother
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 7: that just did from sixteen to thirty nine years old right,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 7: one of my guys. Again, he identified somebody as a
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 7: prospect for the organization. He's a Muslim brother. Again, diversity
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 7: were looking to diversify the team. He just did all
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 7: this time. Solid brother up North. I actually know him,
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 7: and Yo, beautiful experience was that he was not a
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 7: prospect to serve. He needs to be receiver. He needs
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 7: to be a recipient. He's like, Yo, I've been on
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 7: five months and I'm like, you know, struggling. I'm like
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 7: trying to figure it out. He's like, I need help.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 7: And that might have been the first time he said
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 7: that because for five months he's like, I got to
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 7: do this on my own. Like, this is mindset that
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 7: we have coming home from so and it's because prison,
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 7: you know, makes you have to protect yourself from allowing yourself.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 7: I talk about three battles that we experience in prison.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 7: You battling against the correction officers. That's a whole other culture, right,
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 7: especially up North aut no white boys up North. That
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 7: coach is mad conservative. Right. Then you're battling with yours, right,
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 7: the just the segregation, the doggy dog world, the back door, right,
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 7: and then you battle them with your own internal demons.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 7: You know what those three fights every day feel like.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 7: After many years, you come home and look at people different,
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 7: your friendships, you define them differently. You know a lot
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 7: of my brothers that I like, really feel my brothers
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 7: is brothers who I did time with that's home now
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 7: celebrating life for me, you know, despite my real brothers.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 7: But you know, so it's like it changes your dynamic
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 7: with people, you know what I mean.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 8: Part part of the growth is not only helping those
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 8: are returning, but preventing those from actually becoming incarcerators. I know,
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 8: obviously spoke about the why talk about impact and speaking
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 8: to the youth because as we've see especially in New
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 8: York City and I mean I mean picker in the
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 8: city like Kang Grounds, is that the ald time facts,
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 8: So talk about the mission that you're on in that aspect,
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 8: because I mean that's not even.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 7: More important for sure, for sure. So you know, part
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 7: of we kind of categorize our work in two ways,
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 7: right the preventative services is what I'm a lean on
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 7: in the second and then the transformative work. So the
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 7: transformatives work is when we're going inside the correctional facilities.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 7: So right now we're in Woodfield County jail and working
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 7: with youth coming out of OCFS state detention centers. The
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 7: work that we do is to try to inspire transformative
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 7: taking through programming like I mentioned financial educations. Wanted them right,
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 7: you know, giving them just one a person to connect
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 7: with who know that we're going to support them, showing
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 7: up the court with them and all that, helping them like, yo,
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 7: we want to see you when you get out of here.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 7: Change that thinking because some of them never had that.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 7: They don't know what love is, like it's that deep, right, So,
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 7: like we're trying to change how they view their relationships
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 7: with people because they traumatized being in the hood or
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 7: they see and violence, So going up in there and
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 7: trying to change that narrative so that when they return
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 7: home they tap into our community. And that leads to
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 7: the other program, the one Step Ahead part, and it's
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 7: preventive in the sense that we're trying to prevent them
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 7: from going back. So that's giving them all the aspects
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 7: of training from career readiness, education, financial, digital, and being
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 7: a mentor to them while they transition, right, so any
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 7: needs that they have upon their return. We are my
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 7: team and myself working on supporting those needs just again
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 7: so that they don't revert back. The preventative part is
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 7: disrupting the school to prison pipeline, right, disrupting the child
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 7: welfare in prison pipeline right. And when we looking at
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 7: the kids in the school, right, we're talking about these
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 7: kids that are either gang influenced because they're not really active,
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 7: they just influenced. Then you got gang involved. Those are
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 7: the hitters, right, or the want to be hitters because
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 7: some of them are involved. And you know, so our
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 7: programming with the school is the preventative part. And what
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 7: we've been doing is sending in a team to these
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 7: different schools. We introduce the work that we do and
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 7: then if most times the youth show actual interests and
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 7: they want to sign up, and the teachers are always baffled,
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 7: like yo HOI y'all get them to be interested, I'm like,
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 7: because they never met somebody did thirteen years that kids
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 7: about them, right, they see like, oh this is who
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 7: my uncle did. Time. Now we relate to them in
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 7: a different way. And then what we do with them
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 7: is we try to work with the guardians, right, provide
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 7: the parents' support, and then work with the youth and
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 7: getting them into programming, right, whether it's a workshop, whether
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 7: it's a coaching session around something that they want to learn.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 7: Sometimes we sponsor programs if they like, we give them
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 7: an incentive like, look, you like music. My brother owns
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 7: a studio right called the Hub Studio in Yonkers, right,
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 7: So we sent kids there on our dollar to pay
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 7: for their studio time. Keep them off the streets. But
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 7: while we're end there, we educating and working with them,
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 7: building with them right and showing them that we can
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 7: then working with the guardian. The goal is that our
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 7: community right underserved under resource lacks that support mechanism from
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 7: people that look like them. That's where the one in
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 7: one of us coming in at right. I'm with Grassroots,
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 7: So as a nonprofit, we're born from the community, come
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 7: from the community. So people understand this. They know my
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 7: story a lot of people you know, and they know
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 7: my team story. So when we show up at your doorstep,
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 7: it's like a different situation, right than CPS showing at
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 7: your doorstep, you know what I'm saying. So the preventative
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 7: part is again just trying to work with them, getting
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 7: them out of gang culture, you know what I'm saying.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 7: We're working on keeping them out of the streets. Sometimes
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 7: it's not that easy and clean. Sometimes they one for
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 7: all the way in and all into our world. Right
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 7: we're trying to like that that's the battle, because they're
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 7: really caught up, right, So our work is to be consistent,
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 7: be authentic and walk along their journey one day at
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 7: a time and with the hope that we continue showing
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 7: them options and exposure to resources that that could take
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 7: him away. You know. So our thing is and then
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 7: by default talking my gun violence prevention, we start mediating conflicts,
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 7: right like I might have one youth that knows another
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 7: youth that actually really happened. And one youth commented on
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 7: somebody's page online on ig is like the source of
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 7: world war right now. And then one youth called me like, yo,
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 7: bro out of line, I now I'm involved, meetiing like
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 7: your whole long relaxed. And I appreciated him from doing
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 7: that because he's all the way outside. He could have
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 7: just handled that the way he wanted to, but he
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 7: realized that we available. See that's also sometimes it's not
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 7: that deep, just being available for the young boy to
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 7: call like yo, I really want to make this move,
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 7: but I know he would us man, you'll talk to him.
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 7: Now we're talking to him and he's like, Yo, you're
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 7: right our wild out. He's taking that down. And now
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 7: that situation is media a life, two lives to save
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 7: right there, right, So through the mentorship you have mediation happening.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 7: Then the goal is to get them into education based
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 7: program and to change their thinking. And that's an ongoing process.
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 3: So how can people help if they want to donate
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 3: or what's to for sure?
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 7: For sure? So you could find us on all social
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 7: media platforms. We have a website ww dot now on
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 7: for United dot org. There's a donate button there if
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 7: you want to reach out to us directly and have
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 7: a meeting with us before you want to donate, you
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 7: could reach us at info at nine to one four
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 7: United dot org. We have again social media TikTok, Facebook, Instagram,
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 7: dm US shoot out to us, you know, to find
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 7: different ways of payment methods. But if you want to
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 7: go direct to our online on our website, you know.
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 5: So is it to expand further than now on four?
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 3: You just want to focus on Westchester.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 7: Great point right now? I need I need a full
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 7: time staff. There's thirteen of us I mentioned a breakdown earlier, right,
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 7: So we look in at one, secure the full time staff,
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 7: build quality, right and focus on the quality here in
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 7: Westchester because we've been offered to go to Rikers Island,
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 7: We've been offered to go to the city, but there's
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 7: a whole nother landscape out there, the money look different,
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 7: there's a lot of a lot of political stuff going on.
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 7: So my goal is to really like conquer Westchester.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 7: We have a lot of villages in Westchester, like you
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 7: know what I mean, it's a lot.
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 3: So what areas you focus on? Obviously Yonker's Mount Vernon.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 7: We have youth that come out of Newburgh Mount Vernon.
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 7: You skill is some in peak skill, New Vershelle, we
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 7: have every few youth in New Rochelle, and we got
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 7: one on our case slow now and even some of
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 7: the Northeast Bronx now right that we have coming to
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 7: us like yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. So like that's
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 7: where we're at, right, But then we get called out
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 7: to like Mount Kisco, they want to do work in there. Portchester.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 7: There's another need in Portchester. And again I turned, you know,
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 7: situations down because like I can't chase the money because
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 7: it's dead. We need to focus on home. So right
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 7: now with our location in Yonkers Central Park Avenue tween
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 7: twenty five, you know, we just we're doing the grand
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 7: open in April twenty six, and it's to really let
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 7: people know we got out that we planted our flag
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 7: and we're going to start launching MAD programs. So the
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 7: other part I really want to highlight is the linkage
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 7: between those institutions. I talked about Woodfield County Jail OCFS,
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 7: a direct linkage from there to our office. Right we're
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 7: doing that, were doing it like in a more like
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 7: decentralized way where we met them in the park at
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 7: their house at the restaurant wen't have a location. Now,
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 7: we want to make sure that they have a direct
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 7: access to our space and get their education going and
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 7: that basically continuing the mentorship program that we started. So
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 7: I want to focus on Yanka's youth like primarily, but
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 7: also because the county is so diverse and the program
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 7: we work with in the county is the YOP program,
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 7: the Youth Defender Program. We want to make sure that
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 7: pipeline is clear and clean before we replicate that pipeline
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 7: with the other parts of the general population.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 3: Well, keep up, keep up the good work man.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 5: Definitely, you know a lot of education, and it's definitely
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 5: important because yeah, it's needed work.
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 3: You know, you look at the gang violence right now.
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 5: It's exploding and it's one of these things that nobody
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 5: really has an answer for except for the people that's
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 5: actually on the ground that have been through. What they
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 5: can be you know, credible messengers to try to you know,
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 5: provide a different way mediate situations and and give the
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 5: kids a different outlet as opposed to just you know,
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 5: something that's going to give the thirty years in jail.
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 5: So definitely keep up the great work man. Appreciate you
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 5: coming and help me my place. Yeah, man, I'm sure
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 5: we'll be connecting.
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 7: So yeah, for sure, for sure continue that discussion. Sure
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 7: on the opening too, Yeah man, one for now, one
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 7: for your net for sure. Brother. We here putting on
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 7: for the city for sure.
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 3: So thank you guys. Rocking on us to see you
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 3: next week. Peace.
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from El Salvador
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  Speaker 1: filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These are just
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President
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  Speaker 1: one hundred thousand illegal aliens have been arrested. If you
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  Speaker 1: one thousand dollars a day, imprisoned, and deported. You will
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• 1:12:37
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  Speaker 2: Sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security.