06/29/2017
A Better Tomorrow (ABT) is a non-for profit organization dedicated to the health and wellness of the surrounding community. More specifically, we are committed to the development of our young people through job readiness projects, financial literacy, entrepreneurship, and violence prevention. We believe that communities thrive when we collectively and effectively address the underlying issues and root causes of said problems. Many of our problems stem from a lack of jobs, financial illiteracy, and more importantly, a lack of cultural awareness. Therefore, we’ve created different initiatives to address and meet these needs.
We work very closely with youth who are presumably at risk because what we believe is that when our youth are at risk, then the entire community is at risk. Here at ABT we seek to expand the knowledge of our young people through community projects. Our current project is called the Young and Ready Project (YARP), where we provide hands on training and different operations focused in the areas of the beauty industry, technology, technical assistance, and the construction industry. YARP also offers mentorship programs that will positively impact our young people and move them in the right direction so that they will be able to enact lasting change in the community and become community stakeholders.
Our hope is that in the near future we will have begun to lay the ground work for our new Arts and Cultural Center. Through the Arts and Cultural Center we will inspire young people through mentorship and the arts. We will provide dance classes in our state-of-the-art dance studio, theater classes, and performances, in the Dreams Live Theater, focused on cultural embrace.
Located in the middle tier of the cultural center, the Dreams Live Theater will be a place where dreams come alive. It will be open to the community and will seat around 200 people. We will offer performances from many of the young people. It will also be a place where new talent is discovered. The Dreams Live Theater will help dreamers become doers. We believe in expression through the arts. The Dreams Live Theater will give individuals a chance to put their thoughts into performance. We are dedicated to freeing the artistic mind from societal limitations.
The Cultural Center will have a state-of-the-art dance studio where we will encourage self-expression though dance. It will hold between 20 and 30 people at a time. We will teach dance, centered around Hip Hop, Jazz, Funk, B Boy Moves, Hip House, Classic Hip House moves and free style, just to name a few. In the dance studio, it will provide the freedom to express who you are through dance. We focus on movement and musical sound. We believe that every style of music tells a story, and though dance, our youth will be able to bring those stories to life.
We will have also developed mentorship classes within the Cultural Center. We are dedicated to raising the self-esteem of many in the community. This happens through positive and successful images and stories of those in the community who were able to defy the odds and break through the barriers. When the classes are completed, we will have ceremonies to celebrate those who’ve completed the program successfully. We encourage success through celebration.
In the cultural center, we would also like to add a crisis center where we have drug intervention classes for parts of the community impacted heavily by drug addiction.
Likewise, we are seeking to establish a Young and Ready Residency where we provide a safe haven for aspiring minds in the community. We believe that with a little motivation, those in the community will be able to stand on their own while still having a strong and supportive community there to assist in areas where they themselves cannot. We believe that as people are striving to achieve better for themselves they shouldn’t have to worry about their living situations. We believe in meeting the immediate needs of the community so that the community could focus its attention on enhancing the quality of life.
Those with children ages 5 and under will become a part of our new parent initiative where we will assist in the developmental stages of infants and toddlers through daycare.
To execute these projects effectively we are seeking to raise $10 million. In this way, we not only create these positive projects, but we make a lasting impact, as well. Our young people not only find their voice when the community listens, but also through actions and new sets of skills learned through ABT and YARP. With these skills, we create healthy individuals who inspire a healthy community and eventually a healthy society. We are seeking donors and partners to move these initiatives forward. All donations are tax deductible.
