After the death of Mike Brown and the subsequent riots that disrupted the nation, I began to consider what can I do to consciously contribute to my community and empower our people? And it was that question that lead me to developing a program that is now facilitated in three schools while based out of a ranch, Pure Horse Play, just outside of Atlanta.
A little over three years ago, I called a meeting with all of my closest family and friends. I asked them all to meet me at The Varsity and a few overpriced hot dogs later, we decided the best thing we could start doing is cleaning up the community. It’s hard to tell someone, “You can be anything you want to be” when their environment is not congruent with that statement.
In March of 2016, we identified a resident and painted her house, manicured her lawn, and picked up trash. We were quite ambitious as our goal was to clean the entire street, but when only 5 volunteers (including myself) showed up we immediately scaled down to just one house. However, we didn’t let that detour us. After just one year of hosting clean ups, we went from 5 to 120+ volunteers at a single clean-up, collected hundreds of bags of trash, and painted 4 homes.
Through divine connection, in 2017 I was brought into a local all male, African American school (situated just one street over from the houses we painted). There, we developed a character building program. Once a week for an hour, we had the opportunity to pour into 10 students. After the first school year, we saw a significant decrease in suspensions and behavioral referrals and it was then that we knew we were on to something.
Today, The Underdog Society’s program is facilitated in 3 schools and is based at a ranch, Pure Horse Play, just outside of Atlanta. Our program is twofold. The outreach component in the schools and the ranch component. The outreach component works in different schools with four simple goals:
- Self-awareness: Children will be able to identify/ understand their emotions.
- Self Management: Students will develop effective coping skills to help manage the emotions they experience
- Self-Advocacy: Students will be able to make positive and productive decisions and communicate them effectively.
- Mindfulness: Introduce the youth to meditation and stillness.
The Ranch:
Youth will have access to the aforementioned component but with a small twist. The kids are taught to train and work with rescue animals (dogs and horses). In this setting they will also learn responsibility, accountability, business principles, confidence, leadership and so much more. But what we particularly love is that they have a place where they can go and feel like they belong. During meeting/ training hours our kids put away their electronics and build relationships with each other and with the animals. This connection to nature allows our youth to submerge themselves in our program and see complete transformation.