How would you improve your community?

Ways to improve my community has been on my mind a very long time. I deeply believe that people should help build the place they came from, but as a Black person it’s complicated, because a lot of us either move away becomes our hometowns are not desirable to move back to, so improving it would be from a distance or we don’t have the financial means to improve it at all.

In my case, I haven’t lived solidly in my hometown of Newport News, Virginia since the mid-90s, so everything would be from a distance. But, I also have a second place I consider my community which is Flatbush, Brooklyn and I want my efforts to improve my communities to encompass all ages. For kids, I want to start a fund that provides a grant to pay for fees, tests, uniforms, etc. for them joining community groups and organizations. For example, Girl Scouts, a sports team, science fairs, or some kind of extracurricular activity. I think these are important because education, talents and interests should not be treated like an amenity only for the kids whose families have the means to pay for them. When I look back on my childhood, these types of organizations are what kept me out of trouble and gave me personal interests to obtain as hobbies. Hopefully, if this is successful and raises enough money, I’d like to further extend it to include tuition in a vocational program.

However, I know that parents being poor and unable to fund these interests is what keeps a lot of Black kids from joining them. The parents have no one to ask, because everyone they know are broke too, don’t know who they can ask for help, or they’re too “proud” to ask someone, so they simply tell their kids no and they go without and a new talent dies. As a result, I’d like to have a fund from kids in grades K – 12 to fund Black children in Newport News and Flatbush (because those are the areas I’ve grown up and lived in respectively) in their interests.

I figure it’s something small that I can maintain myself and I had started setting the fund up in early 2024 as one of my New Year’s resolutions, but then I was laid off my job and that caused me to halt the fund before it even got started.

For older people outside the high school age, I’d like to start a fund for paying for GEDs, college applications, or any application or test fees that move them up the ladder. As an adult, just not having the startup fees to get a test done or an application sent can kill a dream before it even gets started.

I based my uses for the fund on my experiences growing up and the hurdles I ran into when facing them. Most of the times I had the means to take care them, or I asked my family, but I often think of those who aren’t as fortunate and don’t have the resources that I did.

While I’m not rich enough to give out loans, once I find a job, my community funds are definitely the first things on my list to work on.