THE CATALYST Fall Edition 2014

LEAD2CHANGE PHILANTHROPY PROGRAM

PARTNERS WITH UNITED WAY

As James Marks stripped off his Lead2Change t-shirt, proudly displaying a Live United t-shirt underneath, he officially an-nounced Lead2Change’s partnership with United Way on Fri-day, August 8th during DreamBig!

“We’re thrilled to be partnered with them,” says V.P. Communi-ty Impact Nicole Angresano of United Way of Greater Milwau-kee. “United Way really wanted to know more and do more with youth and philanthropy. Rather than start are own initia-tive, we wanted to tap into a youth led organization, and tap into one that does it well,” she adds. As a result of the partnership, Angresano explains that United Way is committed to helping sustain the work of Lead2Change and creating a seamless transition from youth to adulthood through volunteering, giving, and advocating. “Lead2Change represents hope. It represents youth being given a voice and solving their own challenges. So many times adults are engaging in decision mak-ing, instead of including the very people we’re trying to im-pact,” says Angresano. In the near future, United Way will help distribute surveys, reach more applicants for Lead2Change, and allow members on the YAC to also serve on United Way committees, according to Angresano. “We’re really excited. This partnership is a win for both of us. United Way will benefit in particular, as the youth from Lead2Change will serve as advisors and motivators for us,” says Angresano.

DONOR SPOTLIGHT

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After completing the intense training of Dream.Explore.Build., Jose wrote a song boasting, “This summer was the time of my life!” Inspired to write the song after his internship at a Milwaukee law firm, he is equipped with skills for success and has affirmed his desire to be an attorney and focus on those who need help the most.

Jose, who is starting his freshman year at University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point, is one of 80 students who ex-perienced college, career and community preparation through L2C programming this year. The result is young people like Jose: focused, determined and ready to actively engage in their careers and communities. When I was younger, I had a very strong desire to be a child and adolescent psychologist. After interning in col-lege and switching majors three times I realized that it wasn't what I wanted to do. Now I want to provide youth opportunities to affirm their career path. We provide opportunities for young people to look at themselves in-trospectively and become intentional about being en-gaged. I usually tell them to keep these two key things in mind:

Keep your eye on your goal and everything around you will conform.

Don't stop when it gets difficult. Difficult situations are a time of proving; some of your best work, ideas and inventions will come during this time.

We are excited about engaging youth in service through our philanthropy, neighborhood engagement, and college and career readiness program. And are thankful for all of our program partners that contributed time, talent and treasure has helped in our success. Yours in Service, Dionne Grayson

FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Natalie Cooper, a Lead2Change Board Member since April 2014 and the Director of Adolescent & Holistic Health Initiatives at the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Milwaukee, first heard of Lead2Change through Executive Director Dionne Grayson. Cooper knew of Mrs. Grayson’s work in the community, as they were coworkers in 2006, and she was impressed with Grayson’s commitment to youth development.

“I chose to take on the role of a board member because I desired to use my connections in the community, commitment to social change, and access to re-sources to enhance the impact of the organization,” says Cooper. As a board member Cooper’s greatest accomplishment was assisting the youth with a marketing strategy for the summer as they did outreach in the community. “I love the Lead2Change brand and I am proud to see it on our young people in the community,” says Cooper. Most recently, the board worked on securing funds for the 2014 DreamBig! event which was a great success. Currently they are working on expanding local support for Lead2Change’s daily operating costs as well as identifying re-sources to support a staffing model that is necessary to efficiently operate Lead2Change moving forward. In addition to being a Board Member, Cooper also spent time with the youth the summer at the Thursday Academy and the Block By Block Community Peace Rally. Cooper offers over 15 years of youth development and programming experience, which would helpful as they oriented 100 youth to this sum-mer’s program on June 23, 2014. Cooper states that her most memorable moment was facilitating at Thursday Academy. “I was thoroughly impressed by the staff, youth and community partners that rallied togeth-er to execute the first full day of activities. We named our group “24 Minds” encompassing the notion that creativity, determina-tion, and commitment are required to be successful,” says Cooper.

According to Cooper, Thursday Academy provided the youth with critical skills for employment success and is a part of the framework for optimal success in their personal and professional lives the Lead2Change offers. “I believe that if all youth were trained using the Lead2Change methodology, our society would reach its full po-tential to collectively unite for social change,” says Cooper. Lead2Change is honored to have Mrs. Cooper serve and looks forward to the greatness her dedication and hard work will bring to our youth.

Lead2Change, Inc Board of Directors

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SPOTLIGHT ON BOARD

Out of the five projects submitted to DreamBig! this year, the two winning projects were: Bee Educated with Well Spring Farms & Bars Before Bullets with the Children's Outing Association One of the $5,000 grants was awarded to the COA Youth and Family Center (Riverwest). Dajzhaneie and Nicole created the Bars Before Bullets project, which they designed to help young men in the Milwaukee community make wiser choices. Da-jshaneie and Nicole will be holding an open mic session that will allow young men to give detailed accounts of their experiences with violence. Their project will also offer group sessions to these young men every Wednesday and Thursday to help them control their anger. Dajshaneie and Nicole also hope to have 100 men sign their non-violence contract. The other $5,000 grant was awarded to the Wellspring Educa-tion Center. Ailsing and Sesha created the Bee Educated pro-ject, which they designed to inform the Milwaukee area about the importance of Honeybees. How bees help produce our food, the activities of bees, how to safely observe bees, how protecting bees protects food sources, and how bees help im-prove the health of the community are just a few talking points that will be covered during the day’s activities. Ailsing and Sesha also plan to create marketing materials to promote the Bee Educated projects and reach out to schools that are unable to afford transportation to the Wellspring Education Center.

Kwabena Antoine Nixon and

Muhibb Dyer are he 2014

James A. Marks Legacy

Award winners. Both Nixon

and Dyer are well known

poets in Milwaukee and are

co-founders of Flood the

Hood with Dreams.

Having lost his father to gun violence at the age of 11, Nixon

was headed down a similar path by his late teens. After years of

trying to live up to father’s legacy, he finally decided to make

the move from Chicago to Milwaukee where a local community

elder honored him with a name meaning, “Inspirator.” Today,

Nixon is a community organizer, he works with students at

MPS, and is the founder and President of the Milwaukee Urban

Entertainment Alliance.

“You can’t let the hood define who you are. You have to have a

vision,” says Nixon as he speaks before an audience of

incarcerated youth at the Milwaukee Juvenile Detention

Center.

Wanting to live and teach the messages he brings, Dyer began a

successful campaign to bring the art of spoken word to inner

city youth. Dyer is a motivational speaker and community activ-

ist, who has conducted several seminars and workshops in the

Milwaukee Public School system encouraging youth to take

responsibility for their futures. A native Milwaukeean, Dyer

began counseling and mentoring youth through various pro-

grams while he was still in high school himself.

“If I am able to save just one life or keep one young person

from going to jail, I’ve done my job,” says Dyer.

The James A. Marks Legacy Award is an award presented at Lead2Change’s annual DreamBig! event and is presented to individuals or groups who have made a substantial impact in youth programming within Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Washington, or Waukesha Counties.

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2014 DreamBig! Winners 2014 JAMLA Winners

JAKWOUN Jakwoun, 18, is a Freshman at UW - Platteville. He first heard of Lead2Change through his high school guidance counselor. Jakwoun wanted to experience the benefits of obtaining and successfully completing an internship. “Through participating in Dream.Explore.Build., I learned that no dream is too big,” says Jakwoun. Jakwoun’s biggest accomplishment with the program was obtaining his internship with Vistelar Group. According to vistelar.com, “Vistelar Group is a global speaking and training organization focused on addressing the spectrum of human conflict –from interpersonal discord, verbal abuse and bullying to crisis communications, assault and physical violence.” His responsibilities included creating plugins and establishing site tracking with cyfe.com, which is an all-in-one business dashboard app that helps you easily monitor all your business data from one place. A typical day involved showing up to work at Vistelar Group in Milwaukee and reporting to Colin Hahn, (the Senior Instructional Designer and Conflict Man-agement and Conflict Resolution Training at Vistelar) attending a morning meeting, and getting straight to work. “This internship taught me that even the smallest team can make a big difference,” says Jakwoun.

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Jakwoun’s future career goals involve graduating from college with a major in Computer Science and becoming a Video Game Designer. When asked what he would say to other youth who would consider joining Dream.Explore.Build. Jakwoun replies, “Stay in it for the long haul, it’s worth it in the end and always remember to live by design, not by default.” Jakwoun graduated after 11 months with the rest of the 2014 Cohort on Saturday, August 9th at 11:00 a.m. at the Evan P. Marion Helfaer Theatre at Marquette University in Milwaukee. Currently Dream.Explore.Build. is building the 2015 cohort which will start with an October 1st commitment ceremony for all 120 youth from throughout Greater Milwaukee. For more information on Dream.Explore.Builld., the 2015 Cohort, or volunteer opportunities please call our offices at 414.224.2410.

DREAM.EXPLORE.BUILD.

A peace rally on July 30th at Stark Park marked the first project for Lead2Change’s Block By Block program. Block By Block is committed to the engagement and training of youth concerning neighborhood vitality. Through the program, youth are trained in Asset Based Community Development, transformative leadership as well as project management, to address neighborhood issues that affect them daily.

Currently Block by Block is in the Old North Milwaukee Neighborhood that has partnered with the Daniel Mardak’s Boys and Girls and the 7th District Milwaukee Police Department. Youth were given 5 weeks to plan out their own event. They decided on an idea of a peace rally in hopes of deterring vio-lence in the community of Old North Milwaukee. “Planning a peace rally teaches youth that they have a voice, they can make a change and a difference as young people, and that hard work pays off,” says Samantha Burgess, who oversaw the groups this summer. The peace rally involved an array of activities. For instance, guests speakers included Muhibb Dyer, a well known poet in the city of Milwaukee as well as one of the winners of this year’s James A. Marks Legacy Award and Khalil Coleman, who currently works at the Neu-Life Community Development Center, Daniels Mardak Boys and Girls Club, and the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Milwaukee.

Football, basketball, a jump rope contest, dance contest, face painting, and the red light green light game were also included in the day’s itinerary. Information tables from local organizations were also present at The Peace Rally including: Lead2Change, The Boys and Girls Club, and PEARLS for Teen Girls. I think we really touched the community as a whole and gave them inspiration to no longer be violent,” says partici-pant Xavier M., a student at Holy Redeemer High School. Xavi-er, who chose to join Block by Block to better local communi-ties, adds, “The main idea of our project was to stop violence in the Old North Milwaukee community and spread the idea of peace.” The group is not stopping at the Peace Rally, but after the event survey over 100 families in the neighborhood and planned a number of events to bring the community together for fun, safe, and youth led events.

Interested in getting involved?!

The Old North Milwaukee Team meets every Thursday starting October 9, 2014 from 5:00 - 7:00 p.m. at Daniels Mardak Boys and Girls Club.

Upcoming Events

October 18th - Kids and Cops in Costume

October 25th - Fall Kickball Game

November 8th - Block by Block Basketball Tournament

November 22nd - Thankful for Resources Fair

Volunteers are needed for all events, please contact our offices at 414.226.2410 for more information about Neighborhood Engagement programming.

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BLOCK BY BLOCK

MiaMaria, 17, has been serving as a Junior Program Officer on the Youth Advisory Council since Spring 2014. She will be a Senior in the fall at Divine Savior of Holy Angels High School. MiaMaria first heard of Lead2Change when Alumni Maddie Keyes, who recently graduated from the

YAC at the time, was visiting her high school and spoke to the Sisters of Cultures club, which MiaMaria was a member of. “I joined the YAC because I really love the idea of youth in Mil-waukee striving to make a change,” says MiaMaria. MiaMaria explains that her biggest accomplishment while serving on the council was having the opportunity to be apart of the DreamBig! grant decisions. “Being the support behind a wonderful community service that has serious potential to change Milwaukee makes me feel important and really does make me a catalyst for change,” says MiaMaria. According to MiaMaria, serving on the council has taught her the work of a philanthropist, which includes learning and developing teamwork skills, social skills, organization skills, and marketing and advertising tools and techniques. Being a member of the YAC allowed MiaMaria to obtain a paid internship with Lead2Change as well. She worked at the Lead2Change office three days a week this summer. Her responsibilities included participating on the Street Team, which involves promoting DreamBig! to surrounding areas, as well as contributing to the DreamBig! grant process. However, serving on the council is more than applications, conducting interviews, and deliberating; it is tak-ing a vested interest in the community and turning into wide-spread action and impact.

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MiaMaria emphasizes the importance of the YISF, which grants $2,500 to multiple community service projects led by youth every year, “It is just as necessary as DreamBig! It keeps up with community service projects throughout the year and it also allows for more projects to happen on a smaller scale,” she says. When asked what she would say to youth who would consider joining the YAC, MiaMaria responds, “It's wonderful and a great experience. You work with amazing peo-ple every day and it's a great opportunity to learn more about yourself and other people, the world around you, philanthropy, and what it really means to change your community.” The most memorable quote MiaMaria will always take with her from her experiences while serving on the council is, “Dream big and make it happen.” Interested in joining the council?! We are now recruiting, email MiaMaria at info@lead2changeinc.org for more information and visit our website for the application which is due October 20, 2014.

YOUTH ADVISORY COUNCIL

Organiat io Name

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Nchinda Nchinda, an 18-year-old Sophomore at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, graduated from the Youth Advisory Council in 2012. Nchinda first heard about Lead2Change in grade school when he joined a program in his school district for stu-dents in 5th through 12th grade called the Oak Creek Service Learning Academy. He applied for a grant in 8th grade for the project Discipline Respect and Unity through Music (DRUM) and post grant cycle his supervisor received an email from Ms. Gray-son asking for youth in grades 8 to 12 to apply for the Youth

Advisory Council. At that time the Youth Advisory Council was still a program of the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, so Nchinda was able to assist in founding Lead2Change, Inc. As one of Lead2Change’s founding members, Nchinda served as a Junior Program Officer on the YAC and par-ticipated in writing the bylaws for Lead2Change as well as choosing the Lead2Change logo. During his service on the YAC there was a time when the Mar-keting Chair was split into two positions: E-Marketing and Tan-gible Media. Nchinda ran for and won the E-Marketing position and went on to become Lead2Change’s “most inspirational and influential E-Marketing Chair” even creating a cross-platform app for IOS and Android the organization plans to use in the next few years. “I was a Junior Program Officer in the only organization of it's kind in the country. I don't know how many people on the council fully grasped how unique we are at Lead2Change,” says Nchinda. Through alumni status and maintenance of Nchinda obtained an internship this summer at Messmer Catholic Schools working as a Tech intern. “Mostly I've been in computer labs setting up computers. I've setup just under 90 Chromebooks, ran updates on dozens of desktops, upgraded Mac Airs to OSX Mavericks, and transferred teacher data from some dinosaurs to new Mac Airs,” says Nchinda.

Nchinda learned bout the uniqueness of laptop issues, how administrators interact with each other, how sup-port tickets are processed, and about database administration. “The biggest thing I learned from Lead2Change was to always know my passions and future goals and make sure that every task I do is leading me on that path,” says Nchinda. Nchinda graduated from Oak Creek High School in 2013 as the valedictorian of his class and is now attending the one of the best engineering schools in the world. When asked what advice he would give to others considering joining one of Lead2Change’s programs, Nchinda replied, “You should join because Lead2Change will give you the tools to develop your passion.”

I was a Junior Program Officer in the only organization of it's kind in the country. I

don't know how many people on the council fully grasped how unique we are at

Lead2Change.

ALUMNI SPOLTLIGHT

BECOME A DONOR Lead2Change continues to thrive and operate successfully with the help of donors like you. Your donation to Lead2Change will go a long way by allowing us to equip young people with the necessary tools and resources they need in order to be “catalysts for change” in the Greater Milwaukee community. Donating is simple. Visit our website at www.lead2change.org and click on the donate button on the homepage. You may pay by credit card or mail a check to the address listed in this publi-cation. Below are examples of how your grant dollars will em-power teens through philanthropy in the Greater Milwaukee community. $2,500 can provide grant resources for a young person to cre-ate and lead a service project, such as the ones highlighted in this issue. $2,520 will provide dinner for a year for the Youth Advisory Council (YAC) members formulate ways to impact communities through grant making. $5,000 will provide a DreamBig! grant to the youth group that best responds to the question, “What would you do with a $5,000 grant to make Milwaukee better?” Two grant recipients will be announced at our annual DreamBig! $5,000 Support a school as a DEB host site. $10,000 will pay for two annual teambuilding events for pro-gram participants. Teambuilding involves assisting youth in be-coming catalysts for change. $12,000 will cover general operating expenses for the organiza-tion. Lead2Change is composed of qualified staff and consult-ants, working behind the scenes to bring the organization’s goals to fruition. We believe that youth leadership is a partner-ship and that quality staff members play a major role in the success of executing our programs. Besides, we want to keep the lights on!

Financial contributions of any dollar amount are accepted and all donations will go towards our mission to “empower

and inspire youth to be catalysts for change in their communities.”

Feel free to contact us with any questions,

comments, or suggestions.

Lead2Change, Inc.

735 N. Water Street Suite 727

Milwaukee, WI 53202

www.lead2changeinc.org

414.226.2410

info@lead2changeinc.org

Mission: to empower and inspire youth to be catalysts for change in their communities Vision: a community strengthened through constructive youth engagement in all aspects of society. Upcoming Dates: September 23rd: Philanthropy Program Information Session at the Journey House at 6:00 p.m. October 1st: Dream.Explore.Build. Commitment Ceremony at Destiny Youth Plaza at 6:30 p.m. October 4h - 9th : Philanthropy Program Information Sessions

check our website for times and locations.

JOIN OUR FAMILY! CONTACT US

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