Authentically Detroit
Authentically Detroit is the leading podcast in the city for candid conversations, exchanging progressive ideas, and centering resident perspectives on current events.
Hosted by Donna Givens Davidson and Orlando P. Bailey.
Produced by Sarah Johnson and Engineered by Griffin Hutchings.
Check us out on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @AuthenticallyDetroit!
Authentically Detroit
Detroit Promise, Real Futures with Onjila Odeneal
On this episode Donna and Orlando sat down with the newly appointed and first CEO and Executive Director of Detroit Promise, Onjila Odeneal, to discuss how they’re opening the doors of higher education to Detroit’s youth. Onjila’s hiring marks a historic moment as Detroit Promise enters a new chapter.
Detroit Promise provides every eligible Detroit high school graduate with a tuition-free path to college or trade school. Since its launch in 2013, the program has supported more than 6,000 students, ensuring that financial barriers do not prevent Detroit's students from pursuing higher education.
As Detroit Promise’s CEO, Onjila will focus on advancing the organization’s strategic priorities, which include increasing awareness of the program among middle-school and high-school students, strengthening partnerships with colleges and employers, and expanding student supports to improve persistence and completion rates.
To learn more about Detroit Promise and their work, click here.
FOR HOT TAKES:
WITH CLOCK TICKING ON 2025, MICHIGAN OFFICIALS EYE BIZ INCENTIVES DEAL
IMMIGRATION AGENTS ARREST TWO DETROIT TEENS, NOW HELD IN TEXAS
Up next, Authentically Detroit welcomes Onjila Odeneal, the newly appointed and first CEO Executive Director of Detroit Promise, to discuss their mission to open the doors of higher education to Detroit's youth. But first, this week's hot takes from Bridge Detroit, Outlier Media, and Chalkbeet Detroit. With clock ticking on 2025, Michigan officials i biz incentives deal, and immigration agents arrest two Detroit teens now held in Texas. Keep it locked, authentically Detroit starts after these messages. Interested in renting space for corporate events, meetings, conferences, social events, or resource fairs, the MASH Detroit Small Business Hub is a 6,000 square feet space available for members, residents, and businesses and organizations. To learn more about rental options at MASH Detroit, contact Nicole Perry at nperry at ecnetroit.org or 313-331-3485. Hey y'all, it's Orlando. We just want to let you know that the views and opinions expressed during this podcast episode are those of the co-hosts and guests and not their sponsoring institutions. Now, let's start the show. Thank you for listening in and supporting our efforts to build a platform of authentic voices for real people in the city of Detroit. We want you to like, rate, and subscribe to our podcast on all platforms. And today we have a very special guest in the studio. We have the honor of welcoming the newly appointed and first chief executive officer, executive director of Detroit Promise to talk about how they plan on expanding Detroit's youth's access to higher education. Onjila, welcome to Authentically Detroit.
Onjila Odeneal:Hi, I'm happy to be here.
Orlando Bailey:I'm happy to have you. And we have our voted youth participant, Kenneth, here in the studio. Kenneth, welcome back to Authentically Detroit. It's been too long. It has been. We're so happy to have you, especially with Onjila being here. Well, it's the weekend after Thanksgiving, the week after Thanksgiving. It's Monday. It's the first day of December. Donna Givens Davidson, how is this day finding you?
Donna Givens Davidson:It's good. You know, um, as I was describing right before we came on, I hit some black ice and you know, messed up the alignment on my husband's car this weekend. But other than that, I'm doing great. Thank goodness for insurance. Thank goodness for insurance. You know, it's the kind of repair where you're like, should I use insurance or just go ahead and pay for it though? Because I don't want my insurance bill to go up.
Orlando Bailey:And I don't think Detroit, that's a Detroit problem.
Donna Givens Davidson:It's a Detroit problem. It's like, oh no, I don't know if I want to use insurance. But you know, it was so scary, and to lose control like that was so scary. I don't think I've ever hit black ice like that before. And so, yeah, I'm here.
Orlando Bailey:Onjila, it's good to see you in 3D. Donna, you don't know this, but we go, we go back to my days at Bridge, Detroit. And Onjila did some. Oh, you didn't oh she told you about it.
Donna Givens Davidson:I, you know, I read that and I kind of remember her name. Okay with the name, yes.
Orlando Bailey:How you doing? How's the day finding you? Welcome back to Detroit.
Onjila Odeneal:That part. So adjusting to winter. Um, this is my first winter back in Michigan in about six years. Um, but all is well, all is well. No complaints on my side. I'm excited to be home, excited to be on this mission to support students like me uh that from the city of Detroit and pursuing their pathways towards whatever aspirations that they have.
Orlando Bailey:I love it, Kenneth. How you doing? How's the day finding you? It's very cold. It's very cold. It's so cold in the D, Detroit's winter themed song. You ever heard of it? No. No. Oh man. You don't need to.
Donna Givens Davidson:It's like you know we need to.
Orlando Bailey:No, we need to show the young people the cold the delicacies and the you know, the reaction.
Donna Givens Davidson:We had we need to go back.
Orlando Bailey:Right.
Donna Givens Davidson:Yeah.
Orlando Bailey:Yeah, kind of so you can know what it is. Um, you know, today um has been a good day. You know, I wish this I'm good with the cold. I just wish the sun would come out a little more in the wintertime.
Donna Givens Davidson:Gray and the cold all go together. I don't think you know, Philip was here visiting from LA, and I'm taking you back to the airport, and he said something about I miss gray days. And I was like, you know, you can leave now, okay? Oh, I don't know what it is. Yeah, he said, Oh, sometimes I just like the gray days.
Orlando Bailey:So privileged. Exactly, right? Tired of the LA sun, sir.
Donna Givens Davidson:It's just always so sunny.
Orlando Bailey:It's always so sunny. It never rains. Okay, let me I I can go on and on and on. Okay, y'all for hot takes with clock ticking on 2025, Michigan officials I biz incentives deal. This is by Jordan Hermani with Bridge Michigan. Uh, reforming how Michigan handles economic development incentives and reviewing state regulations are among the top policy priorities for lawmakers in the final month of 2025. The twin goals represent some common ground for House Republicans and Senate Democrats who haven't been able to find much agreement in a divided legislature this year. There's hope for a bipartisan bipartisan rather breakthrough. Just before leaving the Capitol on November 13th for a break, the House and Senate both unanimously passed bills requiring lawmakers to disclose ties to pet spending projects at least 45 days ahead of the state budget passing. That was a top priority for House Speaker Matt Matt Hall, Richmond, from Richmond Township. He's a Republican who had vowed to block any Senate bills until Democrats agreed to significant earmark reforms. Now, Hall and House Republicans are focusing on economic development after defunding Whitmer's flagship corporate incentive program, the Strategic Outreach Attraction Reserve, or the SORE Fund in the new state budget. And signing a roughly $81 billion state budget in early October, Whitmer's office said she and the legislative leaders had agreed to pass some sort of new economic development legislation by year's end. Hall, in a November 11th interview with Bridge, said that in addition to economic development, House Republicans are also seeking to repeal various state regulations. Both the Republican-led House and Democrat-led Senate took a regularly scheduled break in late November and are slated to return to Lansing this month. Donna, what say you? Can we decode what biz is? Because I don't think every people would know what biz is.
Donna Givens Davidson:I think it's business improvement zone. And so I don't know enough about biz to tell you. Um I know enough to be dangerous. I think it is.
Orlando Bailey:I think tax increment finance.
Donna Givens Davidson:It is, but I don't know enough about how it's structured and what it looks like. I do know that we have to take a good heart look at our taxes. Um as much as I can be opposed to the some use of economic incentives, I'm now aware of the impact of um sunsetting economic development um incentives on our community. For example, a lot of housing developments have um tax incentives that are set to sunset this year. And when they do, the cost of operating that housing is going to go way up, which can impact affordability, which can impact viability of projects. And I think we need an education on what all of these things mean because they get all lumped into one thing. I had the opportunity to speak to Onjila earlier before you got here, and she was, you know, sharing with me how Detroit promises finance, and it's not something I knew about. Um I think we have a tendency to generalize. Um, so I'd like to have more information. I do think it's important that we put these tax incentives in place to the extent they are necessary for economic functioning of our communities. Um, I do have a concern, and that is that Republicans in our state are going to use these um to demand some types of deregulation that are actually necessary for protection of people in our state. For example, environmental deregulation. It seems as though what they've been doing in Republican legislatures, federally and locally, is using the need to do the right thing to get people to do something that is actually not in the best interest of our residents.
Orlando Bailey:Yeah, you know, one of the things that sort of stuck out to me is the requirement of lawmakers to disclose ties to a pet spending project at least 45 days ahead of the state budget passing. And we know that Governor Whitmer has been in the news for um some ties to the Michigan Economic Development, MEDC Corporation, and some of her friends and appointees, you know, getting um funds through their foundation. It's just and and of course, I don't know if people know this, that um executive records um at for the state at the state level for Governor Whitmer, they these things are not FOIAble. So I can't FOIA Governor Whitmer's office to retrieve records or emails or to get them to answer questions. I have to rely on her comms folks to be responsive, so on and so forth. But there have been rumblings of news around just mismanagement with the MEDC and the MEDC Foundation and some of the folks that Governor Whitmer are connected to. And so I thought that was interesting that Republicans want to do that because what happens in a Democratic-led executive branch is that they want to hold the Republicans want to hold the executive to the feet to the fire. But I'm really interested to see when there is a Republican in the executive seat if they're gonna have the same tone and tenor.
Donna Givens Davidson:I mean, transparency always looks best when I'm looking in your house, right?
Orlando Bailey:Absolutely.
Donna Givens Davidson:Um, people run for governor, and every single time they say we're gonna make our government transparent, and they got in get in there and they um appreciate the privileges of secrecy and they no longer want to do it. Nobody does. Um, I am a big fan of transparency. I think that it is important that if you're going to have those um those pet projects funded or projects funded by the state legislature, that people know what they are. And I think 45 days is good notice. I think some of the other things, um like you have your corporation that is formed, has to exist for a period of time. You can't just form a corporation to receive the money. Those are important things. So I'm I'm in favor of that. Um, in full disclosure, our organization has benefited from um some of the those tax, I mean some of those allocations, right? Of course. Um, we got allocations from the state to do a redesign of MAC Avenue, and it's you know, great work. Um, a friend of ours, um, Kenetta Um Campbell just got funding to support a housing project in the neighborhood. And that's important work. I believe most of the money that is allocated is doing good work, so why not be transparent? But to the extent that there are also projects that benefit, you know, donors or people who are friends of people in power. Um and to the extent there's a lot of well, who gets who sponsored this bill on behalf of somebody, there's a lot of murkiness there. Um, we need to make that transparent, and we need to make sure our funds are used equitably and for the best um, highest and best use um for our taxpayers.
Orlando Bailey:All right, more to come on that. Immigration agents arrest two Detroit teens now held in Texas. This is by Outliers Kobe Levin and Chalkbee Detroit's Laurie Higgins. Immigration agents arrested two 16-year-old Detroit cousins at their home one Thursday before Thanksgiving. The teens are being held in Texas. The cousins, born in Venezuela and arrived in the U.S. in 2023, were taken into custody along with two of their parents when agents raided their home on the east side in search of a different migrant. Both teens are formerly seeking asylum in the U.S. and had upcoming court dates. They have work permits and jobs at Chile's, said Kristen Schultel, a teacher at Western International High School, who works with one of the teams in an English class for newcomers. Outlier Media did not identify the teens because their parents did not give consent. Schotel said her knowledge of the situation is based on conversations with her student's mother, who had spoken with the teen's father in detention. Outlier confirmed that the father of one of the teens is being held at the South Texas Family Residential Center, a facility operated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, also known as ICE, through the agency's online detainee locator system. Schodel says the teens are there too, though the database does not provide information about minors in detention. Here's the quote: if you care about education, justice in the city, defending the rights of immigrant students who are dealing with fear and trauma is a first step. 42 Ford and Detroit People's Assembly is calling on all Detroiters, including elected officials, to do all they can to get the immediate release of these young people and their family. The two cousins are at least the second and third Detroit student students detained by federal immigration authorities this year. This spring, the arrest and deportation of May Call Bayoga Dorothy, an 18-year-old student at Western, prompted protests. Donna, what say you?
Donna Givens Davidson:This is what hate looks like. Hate looks like taking kids out of classrooms not because they've done anything wrong, not because they're not contributing to the social well-being, because they do not have paperwork that says they can be here legally. And it always is accompanied by, you know, exaggerated fears, like, you know, they're criminals and they're bringing in fentanyl and they're doing all of this stuff. But this is what hate looks like, because there's no rationale or justification for taking these kids out of here. It creates terror in families, it creates terror in communities, and in the school, and in the friends and their community. And it invites hostility and racist actions by people who are cheering this on. Kenneth, I see you sitting forward and I want to hear from you because you are a student in Detroit public high schools.
Kenneth Russell:I actually spoke at the um the rally across from Western with 42 Ford, and I actually advocated for those two students. Those two students are actually friends of a friend of mine, and I spoke on it how it's it doesn't make sense. And it's like we want to stop all these terrorist groups, but we have our own terrorist organization here.
Donna Givens Davidson:Yeah, I mean, when when a white person, American-born white male, kills everybody, it's mental illness, and there's no new policy to punish white males. And it's like it's when it's an Afghanistani person, now all of a sudden we're no longer going to allow immigrants from third world countries, which is uh, you know, a name I thought we had put to rest years ago, but now we're bringing it back out because we have the kind of um leader of this nation who likes to use engage in that kind of talk, but you know, it's it's terrible.
Kenneth Russell:Yeah, and it's like, what's the point? We're supposed to be one, we are the united. I put that in quotes, the united states of America. We're supposed to be together, not apart. And you doing all of this is not making us seem united. We're you're making us look disunited.
Donna Givens Davidson:What is the emotional impact on you?
Kenneth Russell:It's like I have immigrants for friends, so it's like I pray for them every day who don't who they who they so they don't get apprehended by ice necks because it's like it doesn't make sense. They're coming here to get an education, they're not here to hurt us, they're not trying here to take anything from us, they're here to learn and make their lives better, just like we are. And it's like if you're gonna do that, you might as well start taking American kids to you think look like immigrants and take them there and see how you feel.
Donna Givens Davidson:That's happening too.
Orlando Bailey:That's happening. Ask folks in Chicago. You know, the line, the graph that sort of sticks out to me that Kobe wrote, it says both teams are formally seeking asylum in the US and had upcoming court dates, and they have work permits and a job. So you can be going through a formal process in this country and have upcoming court dates, and uh ICE can still just detain you and put you in a what I will call, you know, not a a concentration camp. Some of these conditions are, right? These these camps, these uh facilities. And I'm it it it really is scary. It it brings to mind, you know, the deputizing of any and everybody to apprehend somebody who looks a certain way. Right, and we know what that we know where that comes from.
Donna Givens Davidson:Who looks a certain way, to bully them, to bully them, yeah. To you know, talk about them, to discriminate against them, and it's really hurtful. And you know, just it's it when I read these stories, the pit of my stomach, I feel sick.
Orlando Bailey:Yeah.
Donna Givens Davidson:Um, to imagine that we live in a place where we are just intentionally harming people because of how they look, because of where they're from, not because they've done anything wrong. Um they are talking about looking at green cards of people who are here legally and have done everything and gone through the process to see how they can seek to remove some of these people. So when people tell you who they are, believe them. Trump told you who he was the first time he ran for president, and certainly in between then and the second time he ran for president, and he is now doing everything he said he was gonna do. Anjali, you are working to um help facilitate higher education access, and you've worked on educational policy, so I know you must have some thoughts on this.
Onjila Odeneal:Uh, yeah, lots of thoughts. Um but I think more consideration needs to go into move away from this aspect of punishing the people who do not align with me in the direction of the country in general. So when we think about the higher ed side, the number of cuts that are happening with financial aid, the snatching away of student loan programs, um, recently an the recent announcement of classifying before classified uh professional degrees as non-professional degrees. That's right. Nursing um nursing, teaching, like deficit women-dominated spaces.
Donna Givens Davidson:Um but theology is still a professional degree. No offense, theologians, but I'd rather make sure that my nurse has the resources that they're actually learn what they need to learn before they start working on. Right, because we already have a shortage, right?
Onjila Odeneal:Yeah. Nursing, social work teachers, they're all on that list.
Donna Givens Davidson:And we're kicking them out of the United States. We have so many immigrants coming over here who are have those professions. So it impacts our health care. Anyway, go on.
Onjila Odeneal:Yeah. So those are the biggest things for me is like it's in one breath saying that people aren't doing and they're, you know, lazy and not doing their part, pick yourself up by your bootstraps, then when the ones who are to take away the resources necessary for them to do so. So you want me to get these degrees, you want me to fill these jobs, these talent gaps within the country, but you're not allowing me to access the resources necessary for me to do so. So from my perception, it's just like a lot of backtracking on the progression of people in America in general. And then when you look at it from the immigrant stand, this is a country built on immigration. So it's like we are all to some extent. If you're not indigenous, then you're an immigrant.
Donna Givens Davidson:Well, not necessarily when you're stolen. Yeah, I mean, then there is that dance.
Onjila Odeneal:You are saying we are not native to this land.
Donna Givens Davidson:Well, we're not native to this land, but I do think there's a difference. No, no, no. We're forced here as you know, refugees and people who immigrated here by choice. And I understand what you're saying. I just always want to make that distinction.
Onjila Odeneal:No, absolutely.
Donna Givens Davidson:We didn't come by way of Ellis Island, right? My ancestors did not.
Onjila Odeneal:Um, but anyway, yeah, but so yeah, not saying that that is not a thing. I'm saying in this particular moment when we're looking at immigrants as if they are, and it's kind of like if you didn't get the same protection support and pathways as you're not allowing them to have, you wouldn't be here.
Donna Givens Davidson:You know, I don't, I've never talked to Native Americans about their experiences during these, you know, raids on immigration, but I would imagine they're also being um treated a certain kind of way because, you know, a lot of Native American people look like Latin American people because a lot of Latin American people have Native American hit, you know, ancestry. And so it's just hate.
Onjila Odeneal:Yeah. And what is the line? Like what what what is the line in terms of you pulled I look like? What do I need to show you?
Orlando Bailey:Oh, the line is always moving. Exactly. Like the goalpost keeps moving. The goalpost keeps moving, and we learned that in the the raids in Chicago and apartment buildings when they were taking, they were taking black folks, right? Who who, you know, I I have to state this just for the record, who, you know, in the beginning of all this thought, a segment of black folks thought, well, they voted for him, and this is what they get, without ever thinking that you can get swept up in this, too. It was such an ignorant um viewpoint and uneducated viewpoint for people to have at the beg at the beginning of uh these ice sweeps.
Donna Givens Davidson:And so But people get manipulated, and I want to um give love to people who get manipulated because a lot of people are suffering and they want to believe they're the exceptions, and we turn all of our anger on other suffering people and not on the people who are causing the suffering. So if you voted for Trump or you believe that nonsense, you know, shame on you, but also I have compassion for people who bought into that because there is a weaponization of um of anger, there's a weaponization of hurt that happened that was very intentional. It's not as though people just woke up and decided to side with these people. Remember when Trump said that Mexicans are taking black people's jobs? And a lot of it's like, what's a black job? But for people who find themselves marginalized economically, maybe that made sense. Maybe it made sense to make to blame them instead of other people. But when you talk about what the line is, the line is exactly what it was when W.E.B. Du Bois said the problem with the 20th century is the color line. It is still the color line. It is still whiteness.
Orlando Bailey:It's a great usage of Du Bois, Donna Givens Davidson.
Donna Givens Davidson:And so we're, you know, we're we're there. And I think let's let's just be conscious of it. Let's not try to pretend as though we can really relate to people who don't see us as human, right? Um and one of my great concerns has been the fragmentation among people of color. How we don't like those people and they don't like us and we talk about each other, and all it does is benefit white supremacy. That's all it does when we come together. And even the splintering of people of African ancestry. Well, were you born here? Were your ancestors slaves in the United States, or were they slaves in Cuba? Because if they were slaves in Cuba or in Jamaica, they weren't really enslaved, just like this is crazy.
Orlando Bailey:Get them, Donna.
Donna Givens Davidson:This is absolutely crazy. We should be loving all of us. And all of us come from the same place historically down, you know, in any way. So I don't want to go too far into, but I just think that it's it's hate. Let's call it what it is, it's absolute hate. There is no public policy benefit. And I think Onjila just did a great job explaining what the public policy harm is by this. We are being harmed economically and socially. If you've been to a hospital and you've been unable to access health care, it's going to get worse.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Donna Givens Davidson:If schools don't have enough teachers, it's going to get worse. Um, all of those workers we called essential workers in 2020, when we were all sheltering in place and they had to go to work, we have fewer essential workers and it's going to get worse until we decide as a people that everybody counts.
Orlando Bailey:If you have stories that you want to discuss on hot takes, you can hit us up on our socials at authentically Detroit on Facebook, Instagram, and X, or you can email us at authentically Detroit at gmail.com. We'll be right back. Have you ever dreamed of being on the airwaves? Well, the Authentically Detroit Podcast Network is here to make those dreams come true. Formerly known as the Deep Network and located inside the Sodemeyer, the Authentically Detroit Podcast Network offers studio space and production staff to help get your idea off of the ground. Just visit authenticallyd.com and send a request through the contact page. Welcome back to Authentically Detroit Everyone. Detroit Promise announced the appointment of Onjila Odeneal as its first Chief Executive Officer, Executive Director, marking a historic moment as the program enters a new chapter. Odeneal, a Detroit native, first generation college graduate and seasoned education and policy leader, officially began her role on October 1st. Detroit Promise provides every eligible Detroit high school graduate with a tuition-free path to college or trade school. Since its launch in 2013, the program has supported more than 6,000 students, ensuring that financial barriers do not prevent Detroit's students from pursuing higher education. Odeneal brings more than 15 years of experience in higher education, youth development, and statewide advocacy. She most recently served as senior director of policy and advocacy for the Institute for College Access and Success, where she secured historic financial aid investments and built coalitions to center student voices in Michigan's higher education policy. She also served as acting executive director and deputy director of the Detroit College Access Network, or DCAN, and has held leadership roles in financial aid and nonprofit consulting. As Detroit Promises CEO, Odeneal will focus on advancing the organization's strategic priorities, which include increasing awareness of the program among middle school and high school students, strengthening partnerships with colleges and employers, and expanding student support to improve persistence and completion rates. Onjila, we are so excited to have you here. It's good to see you. Talk about before we get into your role, tell us, you know, the arc of your Detroit story. What's your Detroit story?
Onjila Odeneal:Um, first gen, grew up in poverty, west side of Detroit. Um Detroit Public Schools, K through 12. Um I went to Crockett when it was the Shack O Mac. So not when it moved to the east side when we were still like by receiving and hustle across from Spain middle school. Um so yeah, no. Um my story, my family's story, my mother's story, my grandfather's story is Detroit. So deeply vested in shifting the experiences that I had as a student, especially in being first gen. I was considered a high scholar. Um, but there were so many things that I struggle with that I just feel like students shouldn't have to with all of these things in place. And since then, that was over 20 years ago, we have more resources and more programming and more money circulating around these uh supports for students, but we have the same outcomes. And for me, I literally changed the trajectory of my career because I was actually interested in being an attorney because of what I experienced as a student. So, what it should have been a joyous occasion for me graduating from college, being the first in my family to earn a bachelor's degree, I cried because of how hard it was and how difficult the journey was within itself. I worked three jobs when I was in undergrad um because I was on scholarship, maintained an 18 credit load most semesters in order to get through while maintaining outer level status.
Donna Givens Davidson:So that's you know, that that does not always happen when students go to college from Detroit.
Onjila Odeneal:Yeah. Yeah. So and seeing that, but then also like being from an environment where I know the people's potential that they weren't able to tap into because of the systems that surround them. Like some of the smartest people I've ever known never had the opportunity to go to college.
Orlando Bailey:That's right. I'm so glad you you bring that up because you know, sometimes there is a tendency on part of those of us who have quote unquote made it to think that we are an exception. Talk about why that's not your story.
Onjila Odeneal:That's not my reality because one thing that my mother always taught me is that you don't know other people's story and you need to position yourself to empathize with people's realities. A lot of things could take you off course. It doesn't mean that it is your aptitude or your potential, like life, just life for us, especially in cities like Detroit. So everything down to the student who had to stay back to take care of their family and their siblings. The student who, like, I had a friend who was shot our senior year of high school, and he was a star athlete. Like he wasn't able to pursue those dreams.
Donna Givens Davidson:Because the barriers are structural, not individual. Yeah. And we put them on the individuals. Now you're the first generation college student, right? Yep. So you're not the only smart person in your family. Absolutely. You're not the first smart person. You come from a generation clearly of people who were intelligent and blessed you with their knowledge and skills, but didn't have that opportunity. Yep.
Onjila Odeneal:And then for me as a student, I was just like, I looked around like the neighborhood I grew up in, my mother grew up in. The neighborhood that my mother grew up in is the neighborhood that my father, my grandfather, moved to when he migrated here from Tennessee for uh work at the plants. So for me, as I looked around my neighborhood as a kid, I was just like, all my mom's friends are here. All my grandfather's friends are here. And it's just like, why does no one ever make it out of here? Um, I grew up on Puritan and Dexter. It was interesting. It still is interesting to say the least. Um, but for me, I was just like, what is my ticket out? Like, what is my secession from this place? And I anchored on academics. It wasn't easy. Like a lot of people think that academia is just a natural trait that you have. Like for some of us, it takes a lot of practice. I have dyslexia. Yeah, you have dyslexia. I have dyslexia. Um, and it was a late diagnosis in terms of me being identified as dyslexic. But that made school extremely difficult. Like reading passages 10 times before I understood what it was saying. Um, learning study habits that weren't the same study habits that they try to teach you how to do because they didn't work.
Donna Givens Davidson:How did you get it diagnosed? I know that there is an underdiagnosis of dyslexia in urban communities.
Onjila Odeneal:Yes. So in the 80s and the 90s, sometimes they would bring testing to respective elementary schools. So I was tested at my elementary school. That's wonderful. Um, like they would bring someone in for glasses, like that's how my younger brother, we he was practically blind, didn't even know it. So um, but for me it was dyslexia. I was actually placed in special ed in the first grade because I struggled with reading and interacting with students, but it was really me not understanding what was happening. Um, but I advocated for myself as a first grader to be removed out of the special ed class because um I literally went to the principal's office every single day. Like I do not belong in this class, like I do not belong in this class. And then when they did the testing, he had me tested.
Donna Givens Davidson:That's amazing though, that you had to do that. First of all, that you did that, and think about your life trajectory if you did not.
Onjila Odeneal:And that part, so that's where a lot of my empathy building started because I looked at my friends who didn't have that agency in terms of being able to speak up for themselves and speak up against um things that were happening if they weren't learning things, like I couldn't afford that.
Orlando Bailey:Like I had to say, you had that agency because you gave it to yourself. Where did that come from? It was like I want to appointed to you and say, hey, speak up to yourself. You intrinsically did that.
Onjila Odeneal:Well, I mean, I wouldn't necessarily say it was an intrinsic thing, like something that just boiled in within me. My mother worked very hard. Like she worked two to three jobs like most of my life, right? And I just didn't want it to be another thing on her list that she had to deal with. So it was my support of her not having to come back.
Donna Givens Davidson:What age was this?
Onjila Odeneal:I was six in elementary.
Donna Givens Davidson:So beautiful at six years old at three. I want to take this off of my mother's.
Onjila Odeneal:I was always that way things. So my mother and my grandmother called me their angel child. I was also born at 444, so that goes along with it with numbers. But 444. Yep, it's an angel number. Okay. Um, but with that, like I've always been kind of like this protector, this, this keeper, this, this safe space haven for my family, um, even at a very, very young age. So yeah, that that was my thought process, was because I knew that she didn't know I was placed in special ed um because nobody informed her. Um, so I'm like, let me try to see if I can fix this situation before she finds out. Because I, you know, I just didn't want it to be another thing. Like I had older siblings and things of that nature, and her juggling all of us, it was five of us, by herself while also trying to work and keep a roof over our head and manage all the dynamics that was happening in the community as well to keep us safe. It was just like so your mother is an amazing person. Yeah, she is. Like, I she is she is the foundation of who I am. Like um, we started doing service at a very young age. So, like before the clean sweep days, we were cleaning our local park. My mother would take me and my siblings to clean our local park.
Donna Givens Davidson:She worked three jobs, navigated the neighborhood, had five kids, and clean the neighborhood. I want to meet your mother, so I can make sure a high five.
Orlando Bailey:Um, our people, our mothers, the people who raised us, the people who grounded us into the world and into the record. And you're doing it right now, and you're doing it so beautifully. It would be, I think, the greatest gift and ode for her to be able to hear.
Donna Givens Davidson:And it's it is is wonderful to hear. It's just a beautiful story, and it speaks to the intrinsic beauty of so many of our people that don't get seen, right? Yeah, the invisible beauty of people who are just doing stuff. That's what I love about Detroit. Yeah. Because Detroit has is spawned so many beautiful people. I learned some things about Detroit Primise that I did not know. Okay.
Orlando Bailey:So I'm sorry, wait, wait, wait. Because I she has she has a really interesting story. I want to get to the Detroit Primise piece, but can you talk about your journey to Detroit Prima first?
Speaker 4:Yes.
Orlando Bailey:Because I know it was some ebbs and flows and bumps in a row. It was a little dance, and you couldn't be all of who you were or are in some of these positions that you held.
Onjila Odeneal:Um, so when I graduated from college, well, I mean, it was before I graduated from college. I started a mentor. I didn't call it a mentor program. It was called Round These Kids Up in This Neighborhood and Do Something. Um, but I started when I was 15 and I ran that until I was 25. So every summer I would just work with the kids in the neighborhood. Um, I did everything from tutoring to sports, like whatever they wanted to learn, I figured it out because what I realized was I caught some kids doing some stuff in the park they shouldn't have been doing. And I looked around, it was just like they really don't have examples beyond so who's going to be that example. So I made a conscious decision at 15 to step away from my social circles to be a better representation for the youth in my neighborhood. And it wasn't that we were like horrible kids or anything like that, but it was just like we are shaping them in how we carry ourselves. Because it was a lot of kids, it was like 25 of us that were millennials in a neighborhood. Um, and I'm talking a four or five block, like not far at all. Um, but I did everything with them. Um, it's one of my first uh mentees, she actually graduated from law school a few years ago. Oh, that's amazing. So like it's those moments of like personal sacrifice. But when I was in undergrad and preparing for my LSAT, I was just like, because I was a pre-law student, so LSAT was like practice PS, it was part of our requirement for our uh certification and into getting to law school. I just I knew I didn't want to practice in Michigan given what I had learned, um, because I did want to go to law school in Michigan as well, but I couldn't, like it was just really hard because it means that I had to leave the kids that I was working with. And given some of the dynamics of what they were experiencing at that time, I just felt like I can't leave them because then they'll have no one, right? And we take on that ownership when we're in this work of humanitarianism, right? So I kept pushing it. I kept pushing my date for my test. Like, I'm gonna take it later, I'm gonna figure it out, I'm gonna take it later. And then I graduated. And it was just like my experience and my journey was and the things that I experienced as someone who has agency skills, as someone who has advocacy skills, as a high scholar, I struggled like a lot. Like it was extremely difficult. Housing insecurity, food insecurity, like everything that you can check off on the box, I experienced it as an undergrad. And I'm like, all these people in place, all these voices at these tables, all this work that's happening, all this investment for me to still have the experience that I had, and then also watch a lot of my friends not make it to the finish line, watch a lot of people from my community not have the opportunity. And I was just like, I can't do this. Like, because the whole point of me going to law school was to make money so I can give back to my community. So I was always this like aspect of rooted in my community. I was just like, you know what? Let's just jump straight to it. Yeah, the yeah, yeah. So when you jump straight to it without the money and that entering the workforce, like people don't think about when you think first gen, you think college. We're first gen everything. First gen job, like full-time job, first gen salary, first gen, like a lot of like in terms across the board. So that navigation within itself of like, I don't know what is a good salary, I don't know what good, what is benefit, like, how does that even work? Because I haven't had anybody in my family that experienced or had access to that. So I applied to hundreds of jobs, hundreds of jobs. I started in uh as a numerical revista doing community organizing work in Southwest Detroit. Um, I went from there to doing curriculum writing for Detroit public schools and taking core standards and pulling together community service projects and pairing those. So I would write curriculum for embedding community service into the classroom. Um, but I during this time I'm applying 100 jobs. Like I need to be in the space of either community development or youth development. And nobody would hire me. Like, like I would not get an interview call, I wouldn't get access to any of these things. But when I was doing community organizing work, the work that we did in Southwest Detroit, and at the time it was Southwest Solution, they eventually went to the Harriet Tubman Center. Um, we worked with helping the community work closely with the schools to create centers to advocate for what they needed from their respective community. And I knew that I was deeply rooted in youth development. So I'm just like, the best way to get to those hard-to-reach kids is through school. Like, even with absenteeism, even with all these other barriers that keep the consistency, that is a landing place for youth. So I'm like, I have to get into education. I don't know how I'm gonna do it because I had no education background. My degrees were in business and pre-law and poli sci. Um, so that within itself did not open doors. Like, even with that degree, it didn't open doors. And the first folks to call me back after a year and a half of applying to jobs was uh financial aid.
Donna Givens Davidson:Oh wow.
Onjila Odeneal:And I was just like, you know what? We're gonna go in here, we're going to um build some work, education work experience so I can keep seguing way through there. But my first role was at University of Michigan Ann Arbor. I worked in an outreach unit. Um, and the in the outreach unit, we work with students regardless of what institutions they were interested in. So we were the ones doing the FastFonites, doing the financial literacy workshops and things of that nature across the state. I also had Chicago as well. Um, but hundreds of these types of events with families. I was positioned to call institutions when their information wasn't clear on their websites because that's federal regulation. Like, no, your full cost of attendance needs to be found. Um, but doing that advocacy and that agency for students and families that are just trying to navigate what's supposed to be available to them, it had me in a space of one, I had a lot of challenges with financial aid when I was in undergrad as a first-gen student. Um, but it shouldn't be that hard. And we shouldn't, like even from the institution side, we're supposed to be here to help students. And you have those who do, and you have those who this is just a job. And the while the experience was great there because I was able to work with students who are coming from backgrounds like myself and working in an outreach unit. Um I was just like, something's gotta give. Like this, like something's wrong with the systems. Like, even down to when families were called, they wouldn't know what questions to ask. They didn't know what they were looking for, or they received misinformation from counselors or community, or what somebody told me I didn't have to do X. Like, ooh, you just missed out on $20,000 because you didn't do X. There's nothing I could do at this point. And I kind of got exhausted with being the one bearer of bad news, but two like witnessing the heartbreak because a step was missed. So um, from there I transitioned and went to American University in DC, um, where I was an assistant director. So I was able to see more of the inner operations of an institution and just like some of the processes that go into admissions and so on and so forth beyond just me administering aid. Um and it was just like just disheartening across the board. And I was just like, I can't do this anymore. Like I can't sit in a space where I feel like I'm breaking some type of rule because I'm giving our families the information that they need that they don't have access to. But the affluent family that has gone multiple generations through college know how to navigate these systems, they know what to ask, they know there's an appeal process. But my student who have their first gen student waited until the second year. And now I'm saying you lost, your family lost their house, they're lost, they lost their jobs, and you didn't contact us when this happened. You could have got money in that year and not have to wait until the next year. And it just got to a point where I was just like, I do not feel like I'm a service to my community, and that defeats the purpose.
Donna Givens Davidson:I do not get all of these experiences to then take these experiences into actual work where you were able to create strategy and policy around that. Can you talk about the strategy and policy journey that you followed?
Onjila Odeneal:Absolutely. So um when I left higher ed, I went into consulting, education consulting work, um, working with schools and nonprofits on improving strategy efficiency, systems, grant writing, like, because these were the things that I've always been good at. Um, and that's when I met uh Ashley Johnson at Detroit College Access Network. I was a consultant for her to help build out a grant program to improve college-going culture within schools. Um, it went great. Like it went, the the program went amazing, like to the point, like, for an example, um, Persian was one of our first schools that was uh that year that they were a college-bound fellow, because that's what we call them, for receiving they all act, they were all able to get $10,000 grants to help improve the college-going culture within the school. And that was everything from putting a poster on the wall, because some of these schools didn't even have like imagery of anything post-education, like in terms of seeing themselves in a different light. Um, but Pershing that year uh was one of the first fellows out of the 10. We did middle schools and high schools. It was the first year that every student applied to college. They hit, I believe it was like either 78 or 80% fast for completion that year, and it was actually recognized by the governor for being above 75%. They uh amplified their um their alumni network because that's what we were teaching them how to utilize the resources they had right at their hands instead of positioning themselves to say that I don't have because this check didn't land here. Like not knowing what resources are immediately available to achieve the same outcomes and have them think about it and frame it in different ways. Um, but again, every school had 10,000. They didn't use any of their money because it came from other sources because they started to think about how do they leverage all of these networks and communities that are already close tied and their alum group being one of them because they was like, we want to do more, but we don't know what to do. But as they start to put together these plans and ideas of what they can do, like the alum created uh basic necessity like bags, so it had like laundry kits, uh toiletries and things of that nature that went out to students. Um, they took them on trips, like it would started mentoring, like all these things, and not like all this time we went without doing anything because you felt like you didn't have the resources. But when you realized it wasn't the resources, it was the creativity.
Orlando Bailey:My goodness.
Onjila Odeneal:What helped elevate that in all of our schools, like that year, that and that was the first year that we ran it, they only used 20% of the actual allocation for that grant.
Orlando Bailey:Donna, I know I cut you off. I'm sorry, I cut you off. No, no, no. This is fascinating. So yeah, this is fascinating. I knew it was fascinating. That's why I wanted her to kind of give us the background.
Donna Givens Davidson:Your background, I mean, your background really cements you as a leader who is authentically in that space. Yeah. You are a person who's walked it, lived it, talked it, supported it, created programs for it. You then moved into policy policy space and briefly talk about your policy space because I want to get to the Detroit promise. It's really exciting.
Onjila Odeneal:Absolutely. So when I was uh at DCAN, I actually was uh contacted by TKIS. Uh they were looking at actually anchoring their work in the state of Michigan. TKUS. So TKIS is the Institute of College Access and Success. It is a national nonpartisan higher ed policy organization. They do work at the federal and the state level and also have national threads of work as well, such as like basic needs for students and uh college completion. But I manage the Michigan portfolio. So in me going into that space, I didn't have a policy background, I have policy awareness. So what happens, they would contact me throughout the time that I was acting executive director and ask me, like, hey, how does this policy impact community? Um and I would let them know, like, okay, based off of this language, this is what this will look like. This is how the barriers that exist. So when they created the director role for the state of Michigan, they was just like, we were wondering if you're interested, like, because you get it at the 10,000-foot view, but you also get it on the ground. And usually those two don't meet. It's rare that you get someone who understands both levers. So when I got into the space, one thing that's really big for me is community engagement because it should be us that are informing our respective spaces. What I watched a lot in all of my roles was a top-down approach where people don't understand what's actually happening on a day-to-day basis. And I'm like, I refuse to work like that. We need to have students included and we also need to have community included. I don't want to be one that's saying that we're including community voice and it's because we sent out a survey. Like, absolutely not. I need every aspect of our work to be ingrained with this element of community engagement and student engagement. So, with that, um we built some community, because that wasn't a norm in terms of that time. I'm like, in the three years, it has shifted. I will say that because people start to see the power and the benefit of community voice. Because the limitation was that if people don't understand policy jargon, then they won't understand how to articulate. And my pushback was like, well, we're the experts. It is our job to then translate what it is that they're saying and identify where those barriers are within these policies to make adjustments. So my work focused on and how I built out the Michigan team was for the inclusion of community. All of our policies that we advocate for come from community. They not only select the issues, but they vote on the top one five ones that we should champion in that respective year, like what are the most urgent things on the table. The other thing, in terms of creating a student space, we created a student fellowship, which was a paid fellowship year-long fellowship, where we taught, and the target was students who do not have a background in policy. This is not, it wasn't for the purpose of resume building. It was for the purpose of identifying the stories and realities of students across the state to help inform the direction of policy. So when we brought them in, our target, like so in terms of the application process, there was you just have to graduate from a Michigan high school. Like that's it. Um, because sometimes those rules and requirements make students count themselves out. They see a GPA, they say it's not me. Like they automatically see themselves as not being part of that.
Donna Givens Davidson:And I would imagine that the students that you do get when you base it on those criteria are not representative of the student body as a whole.
Onjila Odeneal:Yes, I want the student who was adopted, the student that ran away at 16. I want the student that's staying with the grandparent who don't understand the things, or I want the student who is a first-generation immigrant. Like, I want those stories because that is where the barriers exist within the education space is reaching them.
Donna Givens Davidson:Speaking of students, students, we have one right here.
Kenneth Russell:Where is this hitting you, Kenneth? I mean, it's hitting me in a lot of places. A lot of places I can't name or put into words right now, but it's like I like the advocacy that you're doing and the drive that you have. I'm currently working on my nonprofit, trying to get that pushed out because I want to push for special needs, getting assistant teachers back into classrooms and possibly even assistant teachers teaching into classrooms again because it showed more growth and success for the students than to just have one singular teacher in the classroom. And my question to you for um you being on Detroit Promise now is like, what are you gonna do about the um my invested child thing that was just passed at the board meeting? Are you gonna also lean on to that the better funding for students going to be able to do that? Invest in my kids.
Donna Givens Davidson:The ballot initiative. Yeah, go ahead. Um, could you say more? Invest in my kids is a ballot initiative that would um create a surcharge or a tax on individual incomes, personal incomes of over $500,000. Okay, and um joint filers over a million. Okay. So anything up to $500,000 or a million dollars, you get taxed at the normal rate, but then there'd be an extra 5% added to those additional. Um it's a right now there's a ballot initiative we're collecting signatures for a constitutional amendment.
Onjila Odeneal:Yeah, gotcha. Um, well, I can't speak on behalf of the promise when it comes to that, but for me personally, I do think that we do need to do a better job at pouring back into our respective spaces. At the end of the day, like these additional resources or this additional tax is nothing like that that's an outfit for some folks within those tax brackets. Um, if we can make a difference for the respect of a child's life or a child's trajectory, like that piece becomes important. Um, we can't just position ourselves to capitalize off of the few dollars that happen at the bottom and not see ourselves as responsible for giving back to these communities that created the advantages and privileges and resources that we have. Yeah.
Donna Givens Davidson:One of the other things about that is that people who are higher income earners tend to pay a lower percentage of taxes because of all the tax breaks that you get for owning property or business losses and all of those things mean that the effective tax rates of the highest income earners are lower than the effective tax rates of people who are lower income and really struggling.
Onjila Odeneal:So, yeah. So a little deeper out of my bucket in terms of my realm and focuses on the work, but in terms of my aspects of giving back and community humanitarianism, like that that is a big piece for me. Like we all have a responsibility to each other, like you said earlier. Yeah, I'm like you, you like you said earlier, we are the United States. So why is there why is there felt punishment in helping us stay united and helping us leverage and and move up in advance so that way we can be all be successful collectively because the next man's failure is not mine.
Donna Givens Davidson:Right.
Onjila Odeneal:So why isn't it, you know, within our like within ourselves to give ourselves back? I was the person who gave my last dollar out of my pocket. Because if in that moment I didn't need it and they needed it more, that was more important to me. That's how I was raised.
Donna Givens Davidson:And research will show that black folks give more of our dollars to things like that.
Orlando Bailey:Segment in the United States.
Donna Givens Davidson:Don't get recognized for it. Don't get recognized for it. But we do it. Detroit Promise. Detroit Promise. This is such an exciting opportunity for kids. I was completely misinformed, and I think other people are, and I just can't wait for you to share what that is and what you're doing.
Onjila Odeneal:So, yes, um, and what uh Donna's uh speaking of is what we were chatting about earlier that uh the Detroit Promise is funded through tax capture. Um so these are funds that are coming from uh state tax capture in terms of the revenues that are happening within our respective space. There are currently, I believe, 13, 13 or 14 promise zones across the state of Michigan, Detroit promise being one of them. But it's resources to be able to give back to students to pursue post-secondary pathways. So right now we have 32 institution partners, that is seven community colleges, 25 public, I mean 25 uh four-year institutions. That's most of our publics, our private institutions as well. Um, the element of trade is a lot of people don't know that most of our community colleges offer trade programs. Right. Um, that has been the shift in the times in terms of seeing what people need, but also seeing the support that is necessary to go along with it. So, one thing that I would advise students is if you are interested in trade, see if it is available at your community college because you know some of those other networking pieces go in alignment with it in terms of supporting you.
Donna Givens Davidson:It's also more affordable than a lot of the private trade schools, right?
Onjila Odeneal:Yeah. So, I mean, when you look at some of the trade programs, they can be expensive, but the aspect of financial, because I used to do financial literacy, like given the background, like what some of my work was when I worked in financial aid specifically, is there are a lot of free pathways for black students. It's just that we do not plan, we do not structure our planning around that free pathway and identify what those free pathways were even before Detroit Promise. Detroit Promise is helping clear, make clearer pathways to uh financial fortitude as it relates to five uh your financial uh is this your is this a last dollar scholarship that you guys provide? So it is interesting because of it is state, uh there is a state statute around it, but it is a interesting alignment with state state programs as well. So it can it depends. So that's why I'm like all of that was to say it depends. Um so last year the uh statute language around promise zones actually expanded. Initially, it was only for tuition fees, so naturally it falls as a last dollar. Um, but last year the language was expanded to go towards the full cost of attendance. I actually supported with Michigan uh Michigan uh promise zone authority in the expansion of the language. So that way we're not keep revisiting like, oh, now students have transportation issues. Can we do that? So, like, no, just expand it to the entire thing. Everything that is that is still. So now promise ones are in positions to look at our respective development plans, what resources we have to be able to support students. So one of the things that I'm looking at is, and one of the things of reasons why I was brought on by the board for this role is that the program is bigger than a scholarship. So it's not just a scholarship that the students receive support with, they also receive one-on-one coaching, bookings, book stipends, emergency grants. Like there's a lot of resources, but what's happening is students are not connecting with the promise because they're counting themselves out, because either I'm not made for college or I'm gonna go this route. But the reality of it is that if you connect with us, you create a network of resources. Um, and that's everything from um programming, like some of the programming needs that I'm seeing across the city. This is something that I did when I was at Detroit College Access Network. But resume building, like internship network, like all these soft skills that we are we don't have access to in our communities, being that Detroit students are mostly first generation students. These are skills that we need in order to be successful, not only in college, but after we graduate as well. So if I don't know that I need an internship to build my work experience, then when I graduate in my respective field and I can't get a job because I don't have any work experience to go along with that. That's not a reality for families and students who know that because those students are doing summer internships. They're taking on jobs that's not just at the cafeteria, but the ones that actually build their portfolio so that they can be hireable after they graduate into viable careers. So let's talk about the tuition, the four-year tuition.
Donna Givens Davidson:There was a time when there was a great point um minimum in order to get into the four-year college, get the the scholarships, and also a test score minimum. What does that look like right now?
Onjila Odeneal:So now um the GPA is still there, it's not as high for some institutions. Most of them are 3.0, but there are some schools that are under that, and that, you know, they have their wiggle room as it relates to uh being able to get students in. The test scores, though, are removed, and that was dropped after the uh pandemic. So because a lot of students couldn't.
Donna Givens Davidson:You know, you remember how we had students back when you worked here, and there were students at Southeastern who could not access that four-year because test scores? Test scores, yeah. So that that made me promise dance. Yeah, that I'm just saying, it made me want to dance hearing that.
Onjila Odeneal:And um, yeah, yeah, so they're they long no longer have a test score requirement to uh access Detroit Promise.
Orlando Bailey:This is really, really great. One of the things that you know I've been thinking about in recent days is that NBC just released a poll saying that 63% of people are saying that a bachelor's degree is not worth the cost because people often graduate without specific job skills and with a large amount of debt to pay off. So I think we can all agree that college it the cost has become exorbitant, right? Exorbitant. Am I saying it right? Did I say it right? Whatever. But you know, one of the things that you know I was thinking about as you were talking about, you know, the kinds of students that you want to reach. You want the student that uh lives with grandma, you want the student that dropped out. It's because even if the survey results are saying this, you know who's still sending their kids to college? The 1%.
Onjila Odeneal:Well, okay, and I want to I want to speak to a couple of things that you just uplifted. First, the reason why this uh this tug-of-war conversation of um is college worth it, we are moving into an economy that a high school diploma is not does not have the same purchasing power that it had in the 80s. Like you are not just entering companies and hitting the middle class. The reality of it is like just giving some of the data that I pulled when I was at the state level, 84% of Michigan's top jobs require. A bachelor's degree, like a bachelor's degree. And then there's another like 50, 60% that requires a bachelor's degree plus something else, whether it is licensing, uh, certifications, master's degree, so on and so forth as it relates to those credentials. We have to be one, honest with our students about the reality that they are walking into. They are charting on paths that are looking at education as aspects of necessity, but also telling them not to go. And that is that is dangerous, especially for our community, because we anchor on this reality. And what I've learned to do is educate with information that people can, actual consumable information. So for example, uh one of my little cousins graduated in for the class of 2024, and my family was raving about an area of interest that she was going into that didn't require a degree. Oh, that's a great job. She's gonna do great. And my question was like, what makes that a great job? And they were like, Because it pays like $30 an hour. I'm like, oh, does it? So what I had them do was pull up the job, look it up. What jobs are open? How much are they paying an hour? And how many hours are you getting? Because what's $30 an hour if you want to get in 10 hours? Yeah, like then this is what I'm saying, like giving people the tools and agency to do things.
Orlando Bailey:Nobody ever told me to do that when I was in high school. So, like, look and see how much a journalist makes. Nobody ever told me to do that.
Onjila Odeneal:So, with that, like, yeah, it paid $30 an hour, but the closest job that was available was three hours away, part-time, overnight, only offered 10 hours. I'm like, she doesn't even have enough money to get her a place for this job that's three hours away. Like, it's it's like putting those pieces together, like some of the financial literacy, uh, like contractual work that I've done. Yeah, it's like giving them real tools that they can use. Like, I have this youth thing that I do where I have students build a budget. You 25, you free-free. What is your life, what does your dream life look like? I make them go on apartments.com, pick out an apartment in your dream location, go to auto trader, pick you out a car because they had a little monthly payment. And I make them build out a budget because in their minds, a lot of times, because they've never touched money money. So they automatically think like I need millions of dollars in order to be successful, in order to meet my basic necessities. Most students, I have not had a student that when they built the budget that it was over like $50,000, $60,000. And then you start to put practicality behind it. So, yes, now you need $50,000 to meet your demands as a young professional. Let's go to Indeed. Like, let's use the tools that are available to us right now. Plug in a salary, plug in entry level, and just see what comes up.
Kenneth Russell:I've actually started that during my 10th grade year. Uh, my 10th grade year is the year that I turned 16 and I built I build a LinkedIn and an Indeed, and I networked at uh Microsoft for um our trip, and I actually got in contact over in with some of the higher-ups, and they're offering um a summer internship that pays 18 an hour. It's amazing.
Onjila Odeneal:But that's how you start, they start to see themselves in these spaces because it becomes real for them. It's not just this thing that lives out there that is called success, but I don't know what my attachment to it is.
Kenneth Russell:And you have to understand the foundations between it, and you have to talk to people around you so you can understand it. I had to start my budgeting now because life is moving faster. They just they just cut my social security off because of my on my other house in Georgia. So now I have to start budgeting because I don't have that $800 to keep me sustainable every day, every month. So I have to learn how to budget and I have to find I have to do job searching now and understand how much it pays me, what jobs are open, and then um when can I do it. I'm glad that my school gives us uh programs where we can get entry-level certifications, but I'm also gonna need my my diploma and whatever degree that they need me to have in that field.
Onjila Odeneal:But what goes along with that is like my family's background is trade. My mother required, like it wasn't a it was non-negotiable in our household. We was all gonna have a trade under our belt. I went to school for cosmetology. So um, like my sister did culinary, my brothers did roofing, like we, I come from a trade family. I got truckers, everything you can think of, phlebotomist, we got it in our family, right? From a trade perspective. So I understand the the necessity to meet people where they are, but we have to create systems that they can on and off rent whenever necessary. So, like if I start here with a trade certification, when you really look at who's making the money, is who owns the business. And 80% of those who I want to say it was like 80% of those who own trade spaces all have bachelor's degrees or higher, and their kids are going to college too. So it's like we keep selling our families these dreams of like this is where all the money is made. But it's like, yeah, as you move up and as you elevate, but what's happening is our families hit these ceilings because they don't have the credentials. Like, oh, sorry, you can't apply for this manager role because it requires an associate's degree. Like, these are the things and the realities that we are not sharing with our families that we want to make sure that's so we just gotta talk more first of all.
Kenneth Russell:It should be pushed, it should be pushed into um middle schools, like it should. Like it should start sixth grade, if not sixth grade, possibly.
Orlando Bailey:You're not lying.
Kenneth Russell:I have my first to you.
Orlando Bailey:We're over time already. It went by so quickly, we could talk to you forever, so we have to do a part two. Okay.
Donna Givens Davidson:Yes.
Orlando Bailey:We absolutely have to do a part two. Go ahead, Donnie.
Donna Givens Davidson:Yeah, I just want I I just want people to hear this though. Yeah. Because so many times those of us in the justice community complain about tax captures, thinking that tax captures are siphoning money away from our schools and our children. But this is an example of when tax captures are putting money back in our pockets, and our children have the opportunity to pursue college with little to no debt. You can't promise no debt for everybody, but little to no debt, which is really amazing. It's you know transform transformational. I just want to know which students qualify for Detroit promise before we close out.
Onjila Odeneal:Yep. So that's what I want to highlight. This part of the promise is also to retract and attain talent in the city. Because what we're seeing is our students being moved out of the city, our talent being moved out of the city to go to schools outside of the city. And then they form those identities that they then attach to and they don't come back to the city. And that piece becomes important that we attract and retain our talent. So the requirements for the promise is that you have to live and attend Detroit schools in order to access Detroit Promise. So for the four-year scholarship, you have to live and attend a Detroit high school, and it could be any high school charter, public, private, uh, as well as virtual and high school. Yeah. Um, and you have to attend the high school, a high Detroit high school for four years, and you have to live in the city for four years. For the community colleges, two years and two years, those junior and senior year of high school. So, um, and then what we're moving towards is offering program and resources no matter when you kind of graduate, but the scholarship itself is tied to the commitment to Detroit education. And that commitment is by sending your students to Detroit schools and actually being in Detroit to contribute to that tax capture.
Donna Givens Davidson:So, as we're looking to rebuild our population in the city of Detroit, parents who aren't sure whether you're getting a better education in the suburbs and you can get a good education in Detroit, by the way. You can still get a quality education in the city of Detroit, but you also can get free college in the city of Detroit.
Onjila Odeneal:Absolutely.
Donna Givens Davidson:Yeah, wow.
Orlando Bailey:Onjila, thank you for coming on Authentically Detroit.
Onjila Odeneal:Thank you for having me.
Orlando Bailey:If you have topics that you want discussed on Authentically Detroit, you can hit us up on our socials at Authentically Detroit on Facebook, Instagram, and X, or you can email us at authentically Detroit at gmail.com. All right, it's time for shout-outs. Donnie, you have any shout outs?
Donna Givens Davidson:Yeah, I got a shout-out. My baby Camille Johnson threw down on Thanksgiving, okay? She cooked everything. My I cooked a honey-baked ham. Long story, but hint, I didn't cook it. I stood in a long, long line, but I did not cook it.
Kenneth Russell:Kenneth, you have any shout outs? Um, my shout out goes out the 4824 and the other organizations coming out to advocate for the two Western students.
Orlando Bailey:Nice. Anjali, any shout outs from you?
Onjila Odeneal:Shout out to Detroit students. Um, may your chart and your path forward be the one that you need it to be to prosper how you need to prosper.
Orlando Bailey:I love it. I love it. Hey y'all, shout out to y'all, our listeners, for always listening. We thank you so much for that. And until next time, we want you to love on your neighborhood.
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