Envision Equity - Special Edition: Reaching & Teaching Our Boys

programming is the most impactful and why, the staff, the board make up. Third, we developed
a fundable plan for the future,” says Smith.
According to Christopher, Smith’s involvement helped stabilize the organization and set him on
a path for success, “Brook not only provided the resources that we desperately needed, he
provided encouragement, support,
guidance, and mentorship. There
is no way to put a dollar amount
on how much he cares about
what we are doing and how he
genuinely cares about these
young people.”
Housed in the Chickasaw
neighborhood, the AMPED facility
offers five recording studios, a
community room and four
classrooms. Christopher says that
they currently have forty students
enrolled in the program. AMPED
students have the opportunity to
learn songwriting, music
composition, recording,
engineering, audio equipment setup, video, photography, web design, marketing and other
related skills.
Over the last two years Christopher and Smith have seen the
capacity of the program grow significantly. Most importantly,
they are seeing the program reach more young people and
change more lives.
“As we see violence increase, more kids are coming in because
this is a safe and productive place to be. Students in our
program have higher participation, better grades and better
attendance in school. We have kids coming in who hadn’t
thought about anything past high school and are now headed to college,” says Christopher.
Smith says he is confident that the organization is now ripe for increased investment from other
donors and foundations wanting to be a part of a movement to change the lives of low-income
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