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HICKS summer youth workers pose with MPD Chief Cathy Lanier in front of their handmade jewelry display during National Night Out at THEARC. Photo: Courtesy of Helping Inner-City Kids Succeed

This summer, one of Southeast’s newest nonprofit organizations, Helping Inner-City Kids Succeed (HICKS), demonstrated an important lesson to the youth who participated in their summer youth employment program: You can overcome limited resources with clear vision and dedicated team members.

Although HICKS did not receive any of the five DC Department of Environment grants they applied for, they launched the Going Green Initiative this summer anyway, enrolling nearly 100 youth in meaningful artistic, environmental and educational experiences. “We have to create employment opportunities for our youth,” says Trayon White, HICKS’ executive director. “You can’t change the social situation for our community without changing the economic reality.”

From June to late August, the teens met at locations throughout Ward 8, including the Barry Farm Resident Council building (where HICKS’ after-school program is located), Woodland Terrace Community Center and Ferebee-Hope Community Center. Most came through the city’s “Passport to Work” summer youth employment program; others who missed the enrollment deadline were still able to participate in program activities. The staff even found a way to provide weekly stipends for some of the non-Passport teens.

Youth learned to express themselves creatively through a series of fine arts classes. After visiting the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian’s museums of African and Asian art, HICKS youth curated and hosted an East of the River Youth Arts Gallery at THEARC as part of National Night Out on Aug. 4.

The exhibit featured over 50 pieces of youth-produced art, including jewelry, acrylic canvas paintings, three-dimensional wooden figures, and a few pieces from Ward 7 youth arts organization Life Pieces to Masterpieces. Children and adult attendees explored their own artistic skills using the easels and canvases HICKS staff set up in a walk-on painting site.

A number of city officials supported the exhibit, including DC Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, Mayor Adrian Fenty and Metropolitan Police Department Chief Cathy Lanier. Teachers, parents and families were present also. The community was so impressed with the teens’ artwork that they turned the exhibit into an impromptu artists’ market. “Suddenly I looked up, and Allie Byrd of Training Grounds Inc. was purchasing one of the youth paintings and people were saying, ‘Can you hold those rings and bracelets for me? I will be right back with cash,’” recalls Jahi Foster-Bey, HICKS program manager.

“We had a great time,” says 16-year-old participant Ronald Simmons. “I gave a tour of our gallery to the lady from the newspaper, (Washington Informer publisher Denise Rolark-Barnes). She was a nice person, and most of all, I sold the first painting I ever made.” After the teens unintentionally turned a $105 profit, Foster-Bey wasted no time in using the moment to light their entrepreneurial fire. “I asked some of the new program participants, what did they think would happen when they tried to sell on purpose?”

Environmental Efforts
On the environmental side, the youth conducted cleanups in Woodland Terrace and field studies at Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens and other natural settings. The Discovery Channel’s “Planet Green” stopped by to cover HICKS’ cleanup efforts as well as a discussion circle at Oxon Run Park about ways youth can prepare themselves for careers in the green economy. HICKS staff raised awareness of the political and economic decisions that create and aggravate these conditions among the youth and city leaders alike.

“Ward 7 suffers the most from the District’s air pollution and Ward 8 from the impacts of water pollution,” explained Tendani Mpulubusi, Ward 8 commissioner of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, during the 2009 Policy Greenhouse conference held this summer at George Washington University. “East of the River communities have the worst environmental issues in DC but get the least resources to resolve such issues, just like Ward 8 is home to the majority of the city’s youth population but gets the least resources for education, schools and recreation centers.”

Mentoring Today’s Youth
In addition to creative and environmental work opportunities, youth attended conflict resolution, nutrition, yoga and recreational fitness workshops and enjoyed trips to Kings Dominion and Ocean City, Md. Janice Hope, a proud Ward 8 parent, text messaged program staff to express her appreciation “for watching over my son, a child with special needs, and keeping him safe throughout the summer, also making sure that his paychecks were correct and resolving any issues concerning payroll and conflicts with the other children.”

Ronald, who attends Cesar Chavez Public Charter School, says, “I want to continue to work with HICKS after school during the school year with the art program.”

Hope would like her 17-year-old son to continue with the program also. “Out of all the summer programs he has been in since he was 14, this was the best one,” she says. “It’s good to see young men in the community being mentored by older men in the community, teaching positive things.”

Since founding HICKS two years ago, White, Foster-Bey and Mpulubusi have overcome numerous obstacles to achieve their organization’s mission: to assist in the transformation of youth whose lives, specifically but not exclusively, have been or are currently being affected by drugs, crime or violence. “When you dress to impress, articulate yourself, have experience and references and still can’t get a job, it makes you want to give up,” says 22-year-old Darnell Weekes, who works with HICKS as a program assistant and consultant. “It can make you want to go another route, especially when so many others around you are making fast, easy money. We’re lucky to have people like Tray, Tendani and Jahi around who can assure you that it’s not worth going down that road and keep you occupied with doing positive things.”

HICKS’ leadership is not much older than many of the youth they serve – they live in the same neighborhoods, and while growing up, they faced many of the same pressures. At 25, White is one of the youngest executive directors in the nonprofit industry. Foster-Bey facilitates what may be Ward 8’s only weekly yoga class and allows parents to bring their children to his home for art classes two hours every week.