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You Can't Afford Me
Making the leap from employment to entrepreneurship can be a scary time. The biggest fear people have is the unknown. Here on the “You Can’t Afford Me Podast” we speak with hustlers and innovators on how to make the most of your journey. If you have questions we have answers.
You Can't Afford Me
Mentoring Boys into Men: Creating Safe Spaces for Youth
Discovering the transformative power of authentic connection in young men's lives takes center stage as Warren, Executive Director of Boyz To Men nonprofit, reveals how their organization is creating safe spaces where boys can truly be themselves.
Warren shares the remarkable journey of an organization that started 26 years ago with a simple mission: to provide young men with environments where they could discuss their emotions and challenges without judgment. Now serving over 650 youth across eight school divisions through nearly 50 weekly circles, Boyz To Men has become a vital resource for middle and high school boys navigating complex life circumstances.
The heart of their work lies in the "circle" - a unique process where young men help establish guidelines, creating ownership over a space that's truly theirs. This stands in stark contrast to the environments these youth typically encounter, where rules are imposed without their input. Through these circles, remarkable transformations occur as teenagers who society often stereotypes as emotionally unavailable demonstrate profound vulnerability, comforting one another through grief, expressing love, and building genuine connections.
What makes this work particularly crucial is the population they serve - over 75% live below the poverty line, many in non-traditional family structures, regularly facing issues like community violence, family incarceration, and economic hardship. Beyond immediate emotional support, Boyz To Men is expanding their impact through innovative initiatives like their university partnership internship program and "Creating a Safer Environment" (CASE), which prepares formerly incarcerated individuals to mentor youth using their lived experiences.
Whether you're passionate about youth development, interested in the social-emotional needs of young men, or simply curious about how authentic conversation can change lives, this episode offers profound insights into creating meaningful connections with the next generation. Visit btmva.org to learn more about how you can support their mission through volunteering, participating in upcoming events, or making a donation that directly impacts young men's lives.
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Speaker 1:Welcome to the you Can't Afford Me podcast, where we skip the fluff and dive straight into the grind Real entrepreneurs, real struggles and the unfiltered journey behind success. Let's get into it. So today, you guys know I'm real big on giving back and I think, especially as entrepreneurs, we need either need to be giving of our time or giving of our money. So for me, sitting on boards for great local nonprofits is a great way that I like to give back. And today we're sitting with the executive director of Boyz II Men not the music group Boyz II Men, a non-profit here in Richmond. We got Warren with us in the studio. Warren, how you doing today, buddy.
Speaker 2:Good to see you, Sam. I can't sing Boyz II Men if I need to Under 30 seconds, so it stays outside of Royals.
Speaker 1:It's the end of the road, so give everybody a quick rundown of the organization, what Boyz II Men does.
Speaker 2:Yeah, boyz II Men is a. Really what we're trying to do is create safe spaces for young men middle and high school mainly just to be able to open up and talk about what's going on in their lives. What we know is that a great portion of young men at least the ones that we serve either have behavioral issues, academic issues or don't have a male mentor in the home, and so we're not there to replace anybody. We're there to just be an additional piece, additional asset to the young man, and so that's our main goal is just let's get them together, create that safety and that structure, and then consistently show up for them throughout a school year to let them know that we're there just to listen to them and support them.
Speaker 1:Now tell us how did the organization get started?
Speaker 2:It got started really out in San Diego 26 years ago.
Speaker 2:A father and a son went on their own kind of emotional journey through this thing called the Mankind Project and when they came back to San Diego they looked around and didn't see an organization that was set up for the social-emotional needs of young men.
Speaker 2:So they created it there and then it kind of grew all over the world, just kind of popped up randomly. And what's great about the men who started this in San Diego is they love to share what they do but they don't really have a high expectation that you do it exactly the same. So when we started here in Richmond, it started with our program director, who's also our chapter founder, steve Martin not the banjo player and comedian, though he is a very funny guy. He started this with just one young man. He was taking him up to Washington DC to a chapter up there, and finally the young man just said can we do something here? And so they started with a community circle at night and then that grew into some school connections and so we started at Tomahawk Creek through a teacher that was on our board at the time, and now we're in eight school divisions serving over 650 youth through 4950 circles a week, nice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the circles. Let's dive into that Because that for me, that was a determining factor. I was like I gotta be on this board because number one is men. We typically don't like talking about our feelings and my wife will say that's definitely true about me Um, but to see these kids and like sit down and talk with them number one you see how anxious they are to talk to other adults about what's going on in their life.
Speaker 1:But I was honestly been impressed with, like, the level of thinking that these kids have. Like the the previous circle I was just in um, I mean, these kids at the freshman, sophomore and junior level are like thinking long term, like they're asking me questions about investing and like where, where their future is going to be. And you know, you think a lot of these kids aren't taking their academics seriously, like half the kids in the group. They're like man, I'm an athlete, I carry a 3.6 GPA Like these kids are rock stars. But to sit there and hear some of the things that they're going through and how they open up they'll talk to us about their relationships and things like that. So kind of go into the circles. I want people to get a real understanding of what that looks like.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when we start in late September, early October, the first thing we do is set up guidelines. We don't set up rules For us, it's focused on these boundaries and it's not us as men coming in setting them.
Speaker 2:It's the combination of some things that we have like confidentiality with mandated reporting kind of tied to it. We talk about no electronics, so that's one that we'll put I language. We talk from our, our own experience, not you language. Um, outside of that, the young men get to get to set their guidelines. Every circle has its own guidelines. That then creates a space where they now know like this is mine. They get ownership and it also allows us as facilitators and men to hold them accountable to what they already agreed upon. So we didn't come in and say this is how it is, which is almost everywhere else they go, the rules are set for them. So they fight against them because they had no buy-in. Since we give them buy-in now they kind of know okay, well, this is mine. So from there it becomes a check-in, which is name feeling what's going on there.
Speaker 2:So we're just trying to get a gauge as men on where the youth are. From there we may start a conversation or we may have a topic in mind. So maybe that week we want to talk a little bit more about anger, so we may set that up for them and then let them again take the conversation where it needs to go. But that circle time is typically about 35 to 40 minutes at a school, starts with that check-in, has that kind of middle section where it's more deeper conversation, either with one youth or multiple youth talking, and then we may have a game if we have time, and at the end we'll do a checkout to see where their emotions are, where everything is there.
Speaker 2:So that circle space is really the container and if that container is tight which you've been in those spaces where that container is tight once it's tight the young men will bring up almost anything. And to your point, what I love when I sit in circle, especially with men who have never been in one, is that there's all these judgments that these young men are. Uh, there's so many words that they use to describe these young men. Uh, cause they see them on games or they see how they talk or they see them on social media and they have judgments. But when you get in an authentic space with them and they know that they can be trusted and they know that the men are going to hold whatever they're going to drop, you just see the most authentic part of these young men and they're amazing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's incredible and I've often said for me there have been weeks where I'm like I've got so much going on at work like I don't feel like going over the circle. It's kind of like going to the gym, like you always feel better after you go to the gym. Absolutely and those circles for me.
Speaker 1:There I think I may get more out of the group sometimes than the kids do like it's selfish work yeah, it feels very therapeutic for me to sit there number one, for me to be in a, in a safe space where I can discuss my feelings and talk about some things that are going on, um, and to be able to share that with the other kids. Like it's just an amazing feeling there, um, talk, let's talk about the like, the age groups, like where we're serving elementary, middle school, high school, kind of give us some insight on that.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. So this started really around middle school. That was the idea was let's get these young men kind of before they fully identified where they want to go.
Speaker 2:And a lot of times by high school, if you're, if you haven't engaged with a young man by 15, 16, they've kind of moved a pretty strong faction. You know, maybe they're driving or have a job or something, so something's kind of got a big pull for them, or sport and athlete, you know they're really focused on that. So what we try to do is start with that middle school group. Seventh and eighth grade is where we started. We've now had a lot of requests, post-COVID and the pandemic, for us to start with some sixth grade groups. But the idea is let's get these young men together around 12, 13. From that middle school we started seeing the feeder pattern. So how do we get into a high school?
Speaker 2:where we might catch this young man and continue to work with him. So that was part of the goal is can we grow with them the best we can? And then just in the last two years, we just saw this high need at at elementary. So we have a couple of pilot programs that are at fifth grade and we have a couple more that we've added. Uh, going into the 25, 26 school year, where we're the circle, looks a little bit different because the young men's minds aren't as developed. But we start with them around like 10 and spend maybe 20 to 30 minutes with them, uh, always with some type of food and maybe an activity, and then uh see them in sixth grade, seventh and eighth grade and the ninth 10th. Uh, it's harder to get the 11th and 12th graders, but certain schools, uh, we can get up to that level.
Speaker 2:Then what we also looked at is here in Richmond we've been around 13 years, so we have a lot of past participants, guys who have aged out. They don't really graduate but age out of the program. So we started a new man's circle and the idea there was 18 and older. Let's give you a space where you can come back and check in about where you are as a man and the trade-off is be involved. So be it at our rite of Passage, adventure Weekends, which is just an event that we do twice a year, or maybe come back to a youth circle, share your experience and story, but how can you give back to those who are now in the process? As a past participant, but how do we also just stay connected with you and know that even though you've aged, we're men, we still deal?
Speaker 1:with things. Absolutely, I want people to understand the true impact that this organization provides. I think it was this may have been before I was on the board and you were just bringing me in as a guest speaker to some circles but I remember there was a school where there was a car accident and one or two kids ended up passing away. And one of the kids that was in the circle was his older brother that got in a car accident and passed away. And it's like these kids are dealing with real stuff like I don't think I ever experienced anything like that growing up, where I lost somebody close to me by you know, violence or car accident or anything like that.
Speaker 1:And when you realize what's really going on, like a lot of these kids just don't have the outlet and I know, especially as a man of color, we grow up being taught like man tighten up, like put your chest out, like we don't cry, like that type of stuff.
Speaker 1:And when you're going through something that serious at that age, like you need an outlet, you need a place to express that. And I want people to really understand like the massive things that these kids are dealing with and the service that this organization is providing, because they're able to transition and get past their grief or even take that moment to grieve because of what's going on. And it's amazing to see the other kids in the group. Well, they'll get up and be like hugging each other man, I love you, bro, if you need something like holla at me type thing, and I'm like I've never seen kids this age grabbing each other and hugging each other and telling each other they love them and that they're there for them if they need them. So that to me, has been pretty amazing to see some of those stories.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's really fascinating if you think about over 75% of the young men we serve are in poverty. I mean they're underneath the poverty line. So you have a great deal of single parents or living with a non-traditional family, so they might live with a grandparent or an aunt, or maybe they're in foster care. So they are already dealing with economic pressures.
Speaker 2:Then they may have come from an experience where someone's dealing with addiction or someone's had violence or someone's in prison. So now you've got some isolation of certain familiar groups, family groups that are tied and kind of taken away from them. Then they have friends that are involved in certain things within the streets, so there's a pool there, so there are all these kind of pieces and parts that are all going on and to detach from those heavy things happening in their personal lives. Yeah, maybe they might be up all night playing a video game, because that's the place where they're connected to friends.
Speaker 2:They can get on headsets and talk all night. So why would you not want to be in a place where you feel connected? So now they show up to school and they're tired. Well, we're also post-pandemic, so you've got teachers on a higher alert, so now the tension is a lot tighter there. So, everywhere they go, it's just, there's just so much going on that what happens when they get into a circle and they get comfortable there is, it gives them just a place just to let it go.
Speaker 2:And even if it's just for a minute, even if it's just to say, like man, I'm hungry today, like thanks for bringing food, thanks for bringing Chick-fil-A, I'm hungry today. Like thanks for bringing food, thanks for bringing Chick-fil-A, because I'm starving today. Or you know what? Like I had a buddy who got shot last weekend. Who can relate? Seven hands go up, yeah, okay, how, how can you relate? How did you deal with it?
Speaker 2:Um, and a huge part of what we do as an organization is honor, because so many of these young men along the way are also just constantly told that they're doing something wrong. So what we try to do is just honor the small piece. So if a young man comes in and says like hey, today I'm angry, thank you. Just thank them for being honest about where they are and let them start seeing that there is a reward in just being real and authentic with where they are, in a way that isn't using fists or isn't using drugs or vape or video games Like. Is there a way to authentically speak what you're already thinking or your body's feeling, and then let's honor that so that they know that that's a good thing to continue to do, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Talk to us about the internship program that Boyce Men has because, much to my experience, like what I said, I feel like when I come into these circles like it's therapy for me and I always feel better walking out of there. The stories I've heard from the interns a lot of them come in not knowing what to expect at all and then you know I'm seeing interns in tears by the end of this program where they're like I don't want to leave, but you know I got to, I'm moving to this area whatever the case is.
Speaker 1:So talk about the opportunities we have for interns and the benefit you've seen to college students coming in and get involved.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. We have great partnerships with Virginia Commonwealth University and Virginia State University a historically black university down in Petersburg State University a historically black university down in Petersburg and we work with their school of social work departments and they take bachelor of social work seniors who have to be in some kind of field placement and we're one of those agencies. So we already have 12 Virginia Commonwealth students lined up for this upcoming school year 25, 26. And we'll take on some VSU, virginia State senior bachelor, bachelor level social work students as well.
Speaker 2:The idea that we try to do I think we have the best internship program because not only do they sit in circle but we try to expose them to legislators and judges, juvenile judges, to all different school board members, board of supervisors, members, wherever we can kind of put them. So we try to give them the framework and the idea that when they go into a school to deal with this one kid, you're all the places and the people who will affect them and you, as a social work student, you have a voice. So if you go into private practice even, and you see that there is a bill passed that's going to hold back young people, you know who to call, you know how to reach out. So I think the great thing about our internship program is we give a great deal of exposure to these interns, not only to the circle but other places, and I think there's opportunities we could grow.
Speaker 2:The internship program it's just really looking for. You know, a school that says, yeah, we want to bring you somebody who is in marketing or we want to bring you someone from that. What we have started doing is assigning administrative hours to try to give them exposure to the back end of what we are as a nonprofit. All the good work we do, all that selfish work, honestly, is within the circle, but there are a lot of hidden little pieces of things that we still have to do as well. Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Two more things before we wrap up. Talk to us about the board. So I know we're always looking to expand and looking for great people to join the board. Talk about the responsibilities coming on as a board member and why someone should consider being a board member. Great question, thank you. I like that.
Speaker 2:It's a softball question yes, what I love about our board is that it is a working board. It's a board where we want board members who can come in and who want to be involved, who want to look at it and to your point, it could be time, it could be money, it could be ideas. It's just what is a way that you can look at our organization and see a gap. So is it in marketing, is it in legal, is it in human resources or policy and procedure? Are there ways that you think that you have a gift and a talent, you have a passion to youth or to mentoring, where you can step in and say, yeah, I can bring this, I can bring this as a gift.
Speaker 2:With our board, we have six meetings a year that are in-person meetings, and then we have two main events and we have some smaller events that are going on as well. But what we want are people who are willing to either they have funding themselves to unload or that they have a network. We know in life, everything is about networking. Every job I've ever had, it's somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody, and for us as a non-profit, to continue to exist and provide the services and and we get phone calls every day. We've got different schools that want to bring us in. There's so many of those pieces and parts that are coming. So we need board members who are willing to say, yeah, I've got a network and I don't mind using it, and that could be again for time, that could be for talent, that could be for finances. But how do we bring those people on? They're willing to be hyped up and continue to just spread the word.
Speaker 1:Love it, Love it. Um. On that note too, with the board, I will say another selfish component when giving back, uh, is the networking that you can do while you're on the board, Like being on the board just opens up some doors for you and you're being connected to people that traditionally you may not have been connected to. Um, as we wrap up, I want you to kind of talk about events and fundraising activities that we have throughout the year and that if anybody wants to give back, whether it's volunteering, donating where can they go? How can they do that?
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. We have a summer program coming up. So if you have youth that want to be involved or you're a man or a woman who who's listened to this and go, man, I just want to see what this is like. We have nine weeks of summer program for June and July. Through this summer we have a golf tournament on September 22nd. That'll be our 12th annual, so we're looking for sponsorships and foursomes to be a part of that.
Speaker 2:We have a giving campaign that runs technically through September October, where we get 10% on top of any donation that comes through. So that's a great opportunity. If you're looking to just give back and that's as low as $10, we get 10% on top. So year 10 is 11. And then we'll have a Brunswick Sioux. That's at the end of the year. So we have a couple of events coming up in that sense. So if you want to be involved from a physical standpoint, you want to sit in something, then please reach out to us at info I-N-F-O at btmboysdominvaorg, btmvaorg, and you can just say hey, I want to be involved this summer. Let me know how. If you're looking for a way to donate or to be a part of some of these events, you can go to our website as well and there's a donate button. Or you can go to btmvaorg slash golf to be a part of the golf tournament. Beautiful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely. One was on me last year. I didn't get to make the golf tournament because my guys golf trips at the same time, so we're going to make that work out this year. Bring some sponsors to the table, we'll get a foursome together. I do want to highlight one quick thing.
Speaker 2:We we have a wonderful program. There's a man who is a part of our staff named Angel DeJesus, who is a returning citizen. He's formerly incarcerated and he was supposed to serve life in prison. Instead he was able to get pardoned by Governor Northam on the second to last day in office. He's now a free man. He spent his three years of parole and he has worked on a program called Creating a Safer Environment. It's CASE and we just had our first graduating class.
Speaker 2:So everyone knows about the pipeline from schools to prison.
Speaker 2:We're working on a pipeline from prison to mentoring.
Speaker 2:So through Angel and his efforts outside of Boyz II Men, we are partnering with the CASE program to basically get men who are formerly incarcerated to go through this 12-week program and when they come out they'll have the skills that they could actually show up with us and be a part of a school, either by speaking or sitting in circles.
Speaker 2:So we're really excited about that program because we know a lot of men come out of prison and they want to give back but they don't have the direction. We want to give them the direction and a lot don't have the business acumen because they weren't able to maybe facilitate all of those skills. So maybe they took all the certificates and have a lot of the knowledge, but they don't know how to apply it. So how do we do that? So Boyz II Men is really trying to step into that gap and just be an advocate for these men who are coming out, to use that positivity that they have in a great direction to maybe rescue young men that's a horrible word to use but provide their own personal insight to young men to hopefully help inform them to make better decisions.
Speaker 1:Yeah, personal insight to young men to hopefully help inform them to make better decisions. Yeah, and these guys stories like I mean angel, when I met that guy man like his story is amazing and the way he can connect with the kids because like he can attack it from a perspective where a lot of these kids are starting to go down the path that he was at and he can personally say from experience bro, it ain't worth it. I was behind bars for x amount of time like I'm just now getting my life. Like I've heard him say in circles several times, like the things you guys are just about to start doing, I'm just learning myself. Now, too, he's like I was a kid.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's not his whole story, but it's a valid story, a part of the man, of who he is, and when more men like him uh, that he's connected to that have returned, come out their stories. Stories are different, right, but they also they can approach it. So if you sit with two or three guys who have been formerly incarcerated, they're all hearing things from the young men and they're telling their story in a way that might resonate different, you know, and so it's just a really good gift and, again, what we do is selfish work. If you sit in a circle, I promise you will be more than edified, because I, at 14, couldn't do what these young men are willing to do, are brave enough to do, just by opening their mouth. So I appreciate this time just to share about it.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, man, and I want to encourage you guys, I don't care if it's five, 10, 20, 100 dollars, donate to this cause. I don't care if it's five, 10, 20, a hundred dollars. Donate to this cause. Like I know, there are a lot of great nonprofits out there and I think programs like this often get lost where you know we're trying to combat, like hunger and different things like that. But it's like it is so important for these young men to have these role models and these people in their lives, because it really does set the stage for their adult lives and what they're going to be doing. So you guys, go check out the website, go donate. Warren, appreciate you being here today, man. Thanks, sam, absolutely, and we'll see you guys on the next episode.
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