Advisory Committee
Paul and I started to build a team.
Nina Essel is a licensed social worker with over a decade of experience working with children and families to reduce stress and find their balance. She is empathetic, brilliant, humble and grounded. I could go on and on. She has a full-time job at an elementary school in Newark, NJ and just founded her own business, Balanced Kids, so she can’t be with us full time, but she will continue to offer her insights and feedback on the curricula and help us make this a developmentally appropriate and inclusive program.
David Clifford has spent the last 25 years as an artist, designer, builder, and equity/social justice-oriented educator. Thanks to Simone Maren, Co-Founder and CEO of Girls Leadership, for putting us in touch with David. He has had a profound effect on us. He has encouraged us to slow down, to be even more process oriented, more iterative, to not move forward based on assumptions, to move forward based on open questions. He has challenged us to address white supremacy and white fragility in our curricula and has helped us see how important it is to integrate issues of race and class into our programming.
Rodney McKenzie is an experienced community organizer, spiritual leader, storyteller and healer. I’ve personally known him for over a decade; we met through one of my best friends, Felice Belle, poet and karaoke partner. Rodney and I also attended the Sacred Center in NYC together, dancing to the choir singing about love, arms waving in the air. I’ve heard Rodney give sermons. I’ve read his beautiful writing. He’s given me life and love advice. He’s one of those people that does everything from an authentic, open place. He asks hard questions, challenges us to be more specific. His perspective and spiritual wisdom offers us light, guidance and hope.
Felice’s birthday
During dinner, Felice asked me to tell everyone about Build Up Boys. When I did, Rodney threw a $20 dollar bill at me, prompting everyone else at the table to give me money. Our first donors.