Mentoring Programs for At-Risk Youth Video

Today on the Brand (R)evolution podcast, “we've got to call fear a lie. Fear, and intimidation. We must shut that down. We cannot be afraid and we cannot be intimidated. And I mean, all of us.”

Intro

Welcome to Brandaide where we answer the question, what does it take to launch your own brand (R)evolution, create evolution and who are the people that help you foster Connection, Community Contribution and Currency for a Brand built to last. You will also meet brands changing the world and the lives of those they serve. Here's your host, Cheryl Hodgson.

Cheryl Hodgson
Hi everyone. I'm Cheryl Hodgson. Welcome to today's episode of the Brandaide podcast. Today is a very special episode because I have the opportunity to actually interview and feature a brand that is changing the world one student at a time. My guest today is Angeles Echols Brown. Angeles, welcome to the Brandaide podcast.

Angeles Echols
Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here, such a pleasure.

Cheryl Hodgson
Angeles and it's so great to see you. We haven't seen each other in a couple or few years. In the interest of disclosure, I've done some trademark legal work for Educating Young Minds, and that's how we met a number of years ago. And when this pandemic started and then also the demonstrations and what's going on in our country right now, I just really, really felt the urge and it was really important for me to share your remarkable story and for you to share your remarkable story with the world--what you've done in the Los Angeles community.

For those of you who don't know, and I'll let Angeles jump in and talk, but Angeles is the founder of Educating Young Minds and Educating Young Minds has been changing the lives of young people for over 33 years. Angeles you started out, this didn't start out as a nonprofit that was changing lives with a great intention or a great plan, did it?

Angeles Echols
No, it did not. It did not.

Cheryl Hodgson
Well, tell me how you birthed this idea.

Angeles Echols
Well, as a matter of fact, I can't take full responsibility for it. Two parents, I was teaching at a private school in Los Angeles, Trinity Lutheran, at the time. And during that process, I had a class of about 35-40 kids. Two parents approached me about working with their kids after school because they felt that they weren't progressing.
And some other teachers from the same school then asked for support. Before I knew it, I had two, four or five kids from various classrooms in my home after school. I had a small apartment. You can even call it a one-room, but kids would study, you know, in the bedroom and the kitchen, or on the balcony. I had students who would take my pillow off my bed and take it in the bathroom and study in the bathtub. One student used to take the pillow, Tiffany, and she put it on the toilet seat, put the seat down, put my pillow there and then put her feet up against the wall. And she could sit there. And then what they would do, they would lock the bathroom door.
It was quite an exciting time. But what I loved about it is they taught me so much. They taught me in terms of what was going on in our communities, how they hurt, their strengths, their weaknesses, what is going on with their families, [and how it] affected them academically and emotionally. How, if they were hungry, if they will sleepy, if they were tired, if they were living in their automobiles, it didn't matter. It did not matter. All they knew is that they had a place to come, get academic support.
I would feed them. It was so interesting. I used to take the 99 cents franks and chop it up and I all kinds of pasta. I would use spaghetti, pasta, hot sauce, and ketchup in a little dab of sugar. And that would be dinner for seven years, seven years until we outgrew the space. And the kids were now going from 1.5 and 2.0 to 3.8 and 4.0 and making all A's and all it was, it was incredible. And seven years later, I literally fell on my knees and I said, okay, God, I did not go to Cornell to teach and tutor kids. That's not why I went there. And, and I literally had to pray, Cheryl, I fell on my knees and said, God, this is what I am supposed to do with the rest of my life. I need you to give me a sign. And he did, and I never looked back.

Cheryl Hodgson
And what was the sign? Did he send you another hundred kids?

Angeles Echols
No, now Cheryl, it's Christmas, right? It's the seventh year. And it's Christmas. I had not been to Memphis in about a year

Cheryl Hodgson
That was your home, right?

Angeles Echols
That was my home. And I wanted to go and see my mom. My parents all chipped in $25, $10, $5, $2, 50 cents, whatever they could. They chipped in and bought me a round trip ticket to Memphis, Tennessee for Christmas so that I would not spend the holidays alone that year. I got that to the airport, and I'm still trying to, of course, look Hollywood now that I'm living in Los Angeles. I'm dressing, I do makeup. I got bumped to first class. And what is so interesting, I sit next to a multi-millionaire who unfortunately had lost his wife. So we started talking on the flight and he wanted to know what I did. I told him, he said, yeah right. Right, so he gave me a problem to do, I did the math problem. He said, okay, you are a teacher. I said, yes, I am a teacher to make that long story short, that wonderful man was in California. And he came to visit me and he saw the kids studying in my bedroom and the kitchen, in the living room, at the table, on the balcony. And he gave me the funding. I'll never forget it. He went to McDonald's and brought McDonald's food back for all of the kids. And he left me a check. When he left, he left me a check, gave me enough money to move Sixth and Catalina. And we moved EYM to Sixth and Catalina. Three months later, I had an attorney, Dr. Bocca, who taught me how to do bylaws and articles of incorporation and EYM was born.

Cheryl Hodgson
Wow. And just so everyone knows EYM stands for Educating Young Minds and that's been your mission for the last 33 years. How many students have been through your program?

Angeles Echols
Thousands. We're talking thousands and what's so exciting about it is some would come and be there for six months because they're only getting help with one subject. Some would come and be there for a year. Many would come and be there from three to seven years. And then all of a sudden I had kids who've been there in the program now since they were four and a half, I've got students that I literally taught them how to read. I went to college graduation about three months ago, four months ago. Whenever the Keck Medical School graduation, one of my students graduated from Keck medical school. She received her MD and Ph.D. I taught her how to read it four and a half or five.
I was her first teacher and, and she was a college, when she became a senior, we gave her a college scholarship. And she said, ‘Ms. Echols, I would be honored if you would be at my graduation.’ And it was, it was quite amazing. And that is what's happening with the kids, our kids period. They are looking for support. They're looking for guidance. They want to be inspired and encouraged. Just a lot of them aren't having those conversations at home to move them. So those of us who were in a position to give them these resources, why aren't we coming together and doing it?

Cheryl Hodgson
Well, that's my question., Angeles, you and I've had discussions offline. I grew up with a grandmother who was a teacher. My grandparents started teaching. My parents started teaching in a one-room schoolhouse in the late 1940s, where they used to have to put the heat on with the woodstove. They used to have to dip the kids’ hair to get rid of the lice on the first day of school. I grew up in a family of teachers, and the only thing that saved my life, because I didn't have a fancy upbringing, was the fact that I got an education. It's just remarkable to me that we here, sitting here listening to all the discussions about Black Lives Matter, which of course they matter, but we've had all this political BS, forgive me, that has gone on for a hundred years. And then there's very little change or very little action that happens and to make a difference. The thing that inspires me so much about EYM and you is that you are actually doing something. You haven't waited for the government to come up with a solution. You've been doing it, one student, at a time for 33 years.

Angeles Echols
Cheryl, there have been times when I have wanted to give up.

Cheryl Hodgson
I'm sure.

Angeles Echols
When funders who support nonprofits, especially small nonprofits, those of us who have a million dollars in less, it depends on the year. But those of us who are small, it's very difficult to get funding, because our 990 Form does not read, the red and black is not appropriate. Or when our numbers aren't large enough, if the numbers aren't in 1500 to 2000 kids annually. But what I am saying is, what I have found that works, is that all of us must come together. The organizations, the communities, corporations, foundations, faith-based institutions, I'm saying that to change the climate, the temperature, we have got to take all of our resources, but those resources together because we can do it.
We've got, we can do it, put them together and share them with these kids and let these kids know that opportunities are available. Do you know, under the jobs, in arts and entertainment, health and wellness, government politics and law, under education, under farming and agriculture, international law, export-import, do you know how many jobs are available? How many careers, how many careers are available underneath those hubs that our young people are not accessing. And that is because the conversations are not being held in their homes because the parents don't have that information. = I know for a fact that we can teach algebra, we can teach geometry, we can teach adding, reading, writing, and arithmetic, learning to read phonetically, in terms of history, what's going on in our country. How to listen to what our president is saying and how to understand and interpret that, interpret it with grace. You know, I want to be politically correct. But how to listen to our politicians and make choices, how to encourage our kids to go out and vote. But I think it starts with the leaders at home. So I'm saying we've got to get rid of the attitude because the parents aren't doing it or can't do it, then it's their fault. No, I think in terms of equity and accessibility, we all have a responsibility. And that's what I'm seeing that I'm loving. You're calling me is an honor. It's my, one of my producers of our annual event, when I told him I was doing this because he knows I've turned down several other offers. And I said I'm always afraid of saying something that's going to offend someone. And you know, when you're working with kids, you're sensitive to that.

Cheryl Hodgson
Yes, of course.

Angeles Echols
He said to me, Angeles, we're at a time right now where it's time for voices and people who are in the trenches with these kids to be heard and also to get as much support as we can. So I am honored. Again, I think what young people are doing right now, this movement, this movement, I can remember being in Memphis, Tennessee, and hearing the stories about our young black men being lynched. I grew up with when Martin Luther King was killed in Memphis. I remember our mom, my mom locking us in the house. I remember my mother, Cheryl, on Sunday mornings, the policemen from the community, and the farming would come to my mother's house after church for dinner. I sat and ate, all of us ate. They would come by. It was so interesting. They would say, Ms. Echols, we were in the neighborhood and they would come and sit at the table, have dinner with my mom, policemen, firemen. When she transitioned, they came to the service and that's what they talked about, her service to the community. I learned from that, from my mom, that given what's going on in this country right now, in all of our cultures, we have a negative, we have that negative energy. We have people who don't have that positive spirit, that spirit of nurturing and caring and empowering all of us, regardless of our gender or our sex, you know, but given that we've got a rise above that. And, and I believe like, like what Mrs. Obama said, you know, they aim, what...

Cheryl Hodgson
They go low. We go high. I think that is what she said.

Angeles Echols
And I so believe that. And I tell my children, I have to share this. I have kids who would come to the center and tell all of my teachers, I have 23 teachers, some of the most wonderful, brilliant teachers. And they would tell our teachers how counselors would tell them they can’t apply to colleges, or they can't do this and they can't do that. And I'm having an attitude. Don't let anyone tell you, you cannot.

Cheryl Hodgson
That is so profound Angeles.

Angeles Echols
Don’t let anyone tell you what you cannot do. I want to tell all the counselors out there who are listening, please stop telling my babies that. Stop telling them what they cannot do. And they've got to go this route because I'm telling you there is that when it comes to education, our kids must learn and they can compete. And that's another thing. These children can compete. They are very bright. They're very smart, but we must give them opportunities and we must encourage them.

Cheryl Hodgson
Absolutely. And I would love to just share something with you briefly, because I think I told you this when I reached out to you, that I literally woke up in the middle of the night, thinking about you. And we had not talked to way too long. You would not leave me alone. It was like this little voice in my head. “Call Angeles, call Angeles”. Because I was really upset with some of the stuff that's going on right now. This thing about having encouragement, you know, my dad became an invalid when I was eight years old, he couldn't talk, he couldn't walk, he didn't know his ABCs. And my mother was 34 years old with an invalid husband, four children, and no means of support.

My first job was for a dollar an hour, my senior year in high school. And I left school and worked for this wonderful woman who changed my life in one conversation. I thought she was upset with me and was going to fire me for doing something wrong. Instead, she actually acknowledged me and talked to me and I started sobbing and crying in the conversation. And she's like, “why are you crying?” I am like, “I don't know, did I do something wrong?” Because no one, no one had ever noticed I existed. I didn't feel that way. Not because I wasn’t loved, but because of the horrible circumstances my mother was in trying to put food on the table and take care of us. And it turns out she thought I could take care of myself. But Norma was the person who sat me down in and in that one conversation gave me a vision for my life; that I could achieve something, that I could leave Covington, Louisiana, and I could get an education with no income and no money.

Angeles Echols
And who did it come from? It came from who was this person encouraging you?

Cheryl Hodgson
It was the woman who I was working for.

Angeles Echols
A woman you were working for. And that is exactly what we were saying. We must leave these doors open for these kids. Two days ago, I got a phone call. I received two calls in the last two days regarding my kids. One was in the hospital with she had to have an operation on her brain. This baby has always wanted to be an actress. I received that call yesterday. This other baby, when she would come to EYM, I told her mother just let her come. We'll watch her, we'll care for her. Keep her safe. She was always so excited just to be in the space, but she had many challenges, but we kept that door open. I received a call two days ago from another student. Her grade point average is a 4.4. And I was like, okay, how'd you get a 4.4, right? I'm screaming. I'm ecstatic. “Ms. Echols, I got a 4.4.” Her mother was one of my students. I had her mother in a program when she was 13 or 14 years of age, I now have her child who's in the 11th grade.
Hold on. Her mother was a scholarship recipient. Her mother now is part of the EYM board. When her mother brought her to me, I told her mother twice, no, I'm not taking her. I can't take her because I am going to have to get really tough, buckle down on her and really come at her to lock her down. Right? Her mother said, “Ms. Echols, please. My child. I’m not losing my daughter. I need your support. You know I’m a single mom.” For this child to say, Ms. Echols, I got a 4.4 and to say, thank you. She sent it to me. It's in my phone. Right? And I said to her, okay, we're going to go wherever you want to go. We'll go to dinner. We'll go bike riding. Go fishing. I don't care. Whatever you want to go. But you should hear the joy in this mother and this child. Now this is a child who literally was in my office, she was doing the exact same thing her mother did --rolling her head. “Well, I really don't need much help. And I know what I'm doing and that’s okay.” Her child had the same energy, but the difference, what made it work? Her mother Lashaya, I probably shouldn't mention her name, but I did. Lashaya, I love you. But I'm mentioning your name. Her mother's mother, Lashaya’s mother, said I'm going to get the help my child needs. Lashaya said the same thing. We all came together as a unit, as one. And we engulfed the child and gave that child resources. So every time that child tried to go another way, there was somebody there stopping them. A lot of these kids, a lot of our low income, at-risk kids of color, do not have anyone, does not have anyone to stop them when they're making a choice. There's no one there that blocks them. There's no one there to touch them and say, it's going to be okay. There's another route you can take. WOWZA

Cheryl Hodgson
Yeah, the consequences. This goes back years ago, but I remember there was a wonderful man I represented early in my legal career and it was a lawsuit. And his name was Wally Minto. He used to teach a course called Alpha Awareness in the Unity churches. But I remember what he talked about in terms of a way to present things to kids. Kids are, you know, you try to tell them, “you need to do this.” They're going to run the other way. Right? And he always said, it's being understanding, that you do have choices.” Young people may not understand the long-term consequences of the choice they make. In other words, “You can drop out of school. That's an option. If you choose to drop out of school, there are consequences. Here’s what's your life's going to be like.”

Angeles Echols
Yes, what the possibility … let me give you the consequences, but let me give it to you without threatening you.

Cheryl Hodgson
Exactly.

Angeles Echols
Let me give it to you without labeling you, let me give it to you where you can still feel uplifted and that you are part of the society and that you can still contribute to it. Let me give you this information so that you can receive it because that's, what's important. And that's what I am saying in terms of the conversations in the homes. A lot of them, unfortunately, are not having these conversations, but we are here.

Cheryl Hodgson
It's also generational. You know, you're trying to disrupt family patterns that go back generations where none of the parents had that coming now.

Angeles Echols
Listen. Absolutely. And guess what? The other operative word you just used, family. Do you know how powerful that word is?

Cheryl Hodgson
Yes, I do.

Angeles Echols
Family. Do you know how many kids would tell you that they did not have that? A family? They have a parent. They had a place, a roof over their head, but a family, no. Resources and support. People ask all the time. I'll share this with you. I'll share this with your beautiful world. We got to a point. I could no longer give $10,000 scholarships to my kids. I couldn't give $5,000. I couldn't even give $500. I stopped getting the funding. People were telling me I need to diverse my population. My population was too black. Was too… at one point I was too African American. Another point I was too [inaudible]. Then I was too Nigerian. Then I'm too Ethiopian. Then I'm too African American. It was just, so when the funding stopped, I knew I had all of these kids that I had promised to give them this money. And I went and took out a loan for a hundred thousand dollars. And I had to take it out in my name because I could not get any funding. And I took it out for $100,000.
I gave it to our accountant who put it in the bank. It went straight into EYM’s account and she allocated that $100,000 to all of us. We had 40 something kids in colleges and she allocated all of that money to those kids. Now, this is what's interesting. During that period, when you look at our 990, you just see the negative, right? That we're now in the negative. Funders will see that, make a judgment call and say, “Well, no, we don't want to give you, you got to get out of the red, that you’ve got to do this, you’ve got to do that.”
But no one asks, “What happened? What did that money go?” Who dah, dah, dah, that doesn't happen. A lot of times in our community decisions are made. And the other thing, something that I have learned with a lot of non-profits like myself, I've met a lot of leaders.
We have been able to take $5 and turn it into $10. We can take $100,000 and turned it into $200,000. I remember once we received the grant for a million dollars and they told us, we knew exactly what we had to do. We had to spend it and put it exactly where we were going to put it within a certain length of time. That's exactly what we did. But then we were able to raise another, almost half a million dollars based on that million. And that's how we built Access, the online piece. So we literally have learned to take what we get and then put that back into the program and help it grow. But unfortunately, we have to spend it. We can't invest it. It's not about making money off of it. That money has to go directly to those kids. And when you do that and you give that money back to those kids and you put it in the program. For example, you can see the center here. This is, I am sitting at EYM. This is one of the suites of EYM. So we put it in the computers, we put it in the desks, we put it in the drawing tablet. We put it in the programs, the textbooks, the teachers, and it works. So I am just hopeful that this transition that we, as a country, what we are going through right now, given George Floyd. So many, we just had, they're now talking about the two men who were lynched in California, black men were lynched. We're talking about the young lady who was killed recently.
My heart just aches. And sometimes Cheryl, I want to take a pillow and I just want to scream. And I want to just, I cannot want to the other day, I just fell apart. When I saw the picture of that young black male who was lynched, I just wanted to pick something up and I want it to hit somebody. And I'm going to be with you.

Cheryl Hodgson
I've been doing my share of crying.

Angeles Echols
I grew up with that. Yes. I grew up with that in the South. I grew up with that, but I had to find peace within. And I have to remember my mission and my calling. And to remember that violence, though, is not the answer. We must come together with grace and love and peace and patience for one another and respect. We must do that.
We cannot let this small group of people who hate and they want to see the turmoil and they want to see that suffering, because they are suffering, because they're sad because their lives are like that. My life isn't like that. I will take a bullet for one of my kids. Any kid that's in this center, I will take a bullet for that kid because I know that the only way we are going to make it through this is with love, with teaching, working as a team, coming together, prayerful and be in due diligence and being patient and being of grace. That's how we're going to have to solve this. So it's killing me that now every time I hear of a young black man being lynched, I've got to sit back and close my eyes and my strength so that I don't become a hater because I am grateful to you. I remember years ago, when someone tried to take the name, Educating Young Minds, and I did not have money to pay you, but I wanted a top-notch lawyer. I wanted somebody who's good. I said, I’m sorry I want someone who is good, she's very bright. she's extremely articulate. And you told me exactly what to do and what not to do. And I know I had no money to pay you. Once I told you my story, you were there and you said, “Angeles, no, we've got to protect that name. Educating Young Minds. Are you kidding me?” And it, and it was wonderful. You were fabulous. And that's what I'm saying.

Cheryl Hodgson
Well, we've got stuff to do, sister.

Angeles Echols
You know what, we've got to do it the way you and I do it, and how do we do it? By coming together.

Cheryl Hodgson
Absolutely. Can I just share this quote with you? Because I want to, I want to move on to some other tactical things and what you're sharing is so touching to me, I can't … no, no, I'm right there with you. And I can't, but I can't resist this because this is so interesting. This popped, this quote came into my inbox, by chance. There are no coincidences about 20 minutes before we got on this call and I saw this quote from Nelson Mandela and I went, oh my goodness. “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his or her religion. I might add, people must learn to hate. And if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love. For love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”

Angeles Echols
Absolutely. Absolutely, absolutely.

Cheryl Hodgson
The love is there. And, and you know…

Angeles Echols
Did you hear what that young girl said recently, there was a young girl and I don't remember her name, but I remember her saying this. I just shuttered. She said, and forgive me, I can't quote her exactly, but Her message was we are not in this for revenge. We're not in this for revenge. We're in it for equity. So thank God black people, those kids who are out there, they're not trying to, they're not being revengeful. They don't want to hurt anyone. They don't want to take anything that isn't theirs. They're just saying let's be fair. Give us a chance.

Cheryl Hodgson
And it begins, it begins with an education system that has books and teachers.

Angeles Echols
But it also begins with the Cheryls in this world. It begins what is so powerful and I've got to call you my white sister. Okay, for this analogy.

Cheryl Hodgson
Can I call you my black sister?

Angeles Echols
Absolutely, from another mother. Okay so now check this out. A couple of my girlfriends from Cornell, right? When we were talking about this and they're both beautiful, you know, they're both beautiful. One is blonde hair, blue eyes, just lovely. And another one, Norma, she's a Puerto Rican, just lovely, six feet tall, both just lovely women.
I said, could you, to one of them, I think it was Candie. I remember saying, “Could you imagine … close your eyes . . . you know, your son, Todd, who's 23 years old, imagine having to live every day, afraid that your baby cannot walk back, can’t come back home or walk down to the store or go jogging or driving an automobile without being afraid that he will not make it home that evening. And you must live with that every day. Imagine living with that every day.” It’s very difficult for people to go there if you can't feel that. I was saying to her, “the only thing I can suggest is that you close your eyes for a second and imagine that child, put your child's face on that body, on that frame, how would you feel, then you will have some imagined a nation in terms of how that other parent feels, but that's why it takes all of us. And it takes all of us to go there, to believe, to be patient with it. But to be honest about it, to do it in honesty, to be honest about it and not do it with fear. We have got, that's my last piece, that I do believe we've got a call, fear, a lie, fear, and intimidation. We must shut that down. We cannot be afraid and we cannot be intimidated. And I mean, all of us. I wanted to send a card to that gentleman, that older man, remember he got pushed by the police and his head. I wanted to send him flowers. I wanted to send that baby flowers just to say, thank you. If you were out there for me. And thank you, please know that we are appreciative. Please know that Cheryl's of the world, you and your, your, your colleagues. We are so grateful. We are so grateful because we cannot do this alone. We cannot, we need everyone.

Cheryl Hodgson
This concludes part one of my interview with Angeles Echols of Educating Young Minds, EYM has helped change the lives of thousands of disadvantaged children of color, through education, encouragement, and caring. EYM is a nonprofit providing support, nurturing, mentoring, and tutoring. That which has been sorely lacking in public education for decades. Stay tuned for part two in our next episode.

Close:
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