Inspiring Minds Celebrates 17 years
WARREN — For the past 17 years, Inspiring Minds has provided free after-school and summer enrichment programs for under-represented kids in the Mahoning Valley.
The organization celebrated its anniversary Saturday with a gala that drew about 600 people to its Warren location on Woodland Street NE.
“Many people have contributed their time and money to help our program grow and we want to recognize that,” said Deryck Toles, founder and CEO of Inspiring Minds.
This was the organization’s first gala at its Warren headquarters, a short distance from Warren G. Harding High School. The organization has four other locations: Youngstown, New York City, Philadelphia and Durham, N.C.
“We focus on education and exposing our young people to new experiences,” Toles said. “Kids get out of school and come here. We give them healthy foods and have education teams work on homework and college scholarships and college applications. We prepare them for the ACT and take them on college visits and industry visits so by the time they graduate from high school, they actually know what they want to be because we take them on trips and motivate them.”
Inspiring Minds has about 500 Mahoning Valley students in its programs each year.
Naomi Caledwell, a sophomore at Harding, said she first got involved in Inspiring Minds in the fifth grade.
“It’s been very interesting,” she said. “I don’t have to be bored at home. We get to go on trips. I’ve been to Washington, D.C., and Florida.”
Azyah Blackwell, also a Harding sophomore, said the program “has exposed us to a lot of our culture. It’s very positive around here.”
This year’s gala was inspired by the culture of the Gullah Geechee people, who were descendants of west and central Africans enslaved in Georgia and the Carolinas to work on rice, cotton and indigo plantations.
The food also was inspired by the Gullah Geechee. The menu included black-eyed peas, collard greens, oysters, macaroni and cheese, Carolina gold rice, beet-infused cornbread, grilled snapper, okra stew, roasted hog and lamb, and fried whiting fish.
Trinette Simon of Youngstown, an Inspiring Minds board member, said the program “is amazing. It’s provided wonderful growth for young people. The program has accomplished so much.”
Sherri Bercheni of Warren, another board member, said: “It empowers our youth and educates them. After they’ve graduated, they come back and give to the community. They achieve great things and have a great support system here.”
Toles said, “We want to provide opportunities to these kids so people can come into their lives and help them be successful. So many people tell our kids you need to aspire to be a doctor or a lawyer. My whole thing is if you don’t know a doctor or a lawyer how can you aspire to be that? We expose them to things they don’t know exist.”