Inspired to Serve More Students
Inspiring Minds gets $100,000 grant
WARREN — A student support program that provides unique learning experiences is getting a financial boost from a local organization.
The Youngstown Foundation recently announced it was providing $300,000 worth of funding to several local organizations, and the largest portion of that is a $100,000 contribution to Inspiring Minds.
The Warren-based program, which also operates in Youngstown — and three other states — has been growing since its founding in 2006. The website says the group’s mission is “to engage, inspire and empower youth to reach their full potential through education and exposure to life-changing experiences.”
“When the school doors close, many young people struggle to access educational opportunities and basic needs such as healthy meals and adequate adult supervision,” said Inspiring Minds Founder and CEO Deryck Toles. “Our programs enable students to continue their intellectual development while they receive the necessary support they need to do so.”
Toles said the money will help the program in a big way.
“For the most part, it’ll support the work we’re already doing,” he said. “We have a waiting list in both chapters, so the goal is that we can get to a point where we can begin to serve more students.”
In the Mahoning Valley, between Warren and Youngstown, Inspiring Minds serves nearly 600 students from third grade through high school. The facilities are located at 837 Woodland St. SE in Warren, near Harding High School, and at 2915 Glenwood Ave. in Youngstown. Toles said they have about 300 every year on the Warren wait list and 50 in Youngstown.
Toles said the funding will help Inspiring Minds continue to feed its students, provide tutoring, help with homework and other academic support. Inspiring Minds takes students on college visits every week during the summer, and provides career development opportunities.
“We take students to visit different companies and industries, so they can be exposed to all the opportunities for being successful in life,” he said.
The program operates after school from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday during the summer.
The program’s transition department also supports many of its students who are in college.
Toles said they provide quarterly meetings with them, as well as two in-person meetings when they come back to town on breaks, and provide care packages at the beginning of the year.
The Summer Career Development Program also allows them to come back home and work at one of Inspiring Minds’ partnering agencies or companies with a paid internship in their field of study.
Along with the regular support, Inspiring Minds provides its students with unforgettable experiences every year, taking them on trips, domestically and abroad. Toles said undergraduate students go on a domestic trip — New York, California, and most recently New Orleans — while high school graduates go overseas. This year’s foreign trip was to Kenya.
“The undergrads visited businesses and colleges and got immersed in local culture, and the grads went to Kenya, and did kind of the same thing there,” Toles said. “We want our young people to see there’s a huge world out there, and they got a chance to see what life is like elsewhere. And it made them think about what ways they can begin to give back and be a positive influence to their communities.”
Toles said the prospect of the trip gives students something to look forward to and motivates them to keep their focus on the right things.
Students in Kenya went on a safari, met people in several villages, from many different tribes, and even met Anyang’ Nyong’o — Governor of Kenya’s Kisumu County and father of actress Lupita Nyong’o.
Toles said in addition to the experience of seeing new places and meeting the residents there, the students also meet other students from Inspiring Minds chapters elsewhere.
Beyond Youngstown and Warren, the organization operates in Philadelphia, New York City and Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina.
“All chapters come with us on the trips, so the students all are building relationships with kids from across the country, and forging connections,” he said.
Within the next month, Toles said Inspiring Minds will open chapters in Detroit, Columbus and Dayton, and they are in conversations with officials in Las Vegas and Louisiana. Nationwide, Inspiring minds supports over 1200 students. Toles said it will be between 1,500 and 2,000 before the end of this year.
“It shows that people respect our work and they want to be part of the impact,” he said. “That they feel we could also benefit their community, and it’s very humbling.”
He said one of the most remarkable things about the organization is that about 90 percent of its staff are former students in the programs.
“It means a lot — and it says a lot — that they go through the program, they enjoyed it, they go off to college, and then they come back to help students in the same situation they were in,” he said.
The grant from the Youngstown Foundation is broken down into two $50,000 awards over two years.
“Supporting the high-quality youth development efforts at Inspiring Minds is an honor,” said Youngstown Foundation President Lynnette Forde. “The Youngstown Foundation is inspired by the commitment of Deryck Toles and his team to our community.”
Toles said the organization has about a $3.5 million budget in Warren and Youngstown. They support their programming through annual fundraisers – an annual gala in April and a celebrity golf outing in June – and this year will host a holiday “Sneaker Ball” in Youngstown on Nov. 9.
Toles said they also write grant applications to local foundations, seek sponsorship from companies and receive support from individual donors.
“We also have a very, very strong relationship with Warren City Schools, and they support us in a big way, with transportation, funding opportunities, and facility usage,” he said.