Youth from Ivy City from left to right, Stephanie Chloe, Dedrica (Drica) Clyburne, James Batts, Moniya Walker and Santasia (Tay) Scarborough

This summer, Empower DC hired several youth from Ivy City to help organize their community. What follows are the impressions of a few of the participants and a lovely video of Ivy City’s Annual reunion produced by two of the youth, Stephan Scarborough and Amari McCray.

Dedrica: I loved being the assistant community organizer for Ivy City because I used my voice for a better purpose. I feel Empower DC is doing an awesome job fighting for Alexander Crummell School. I got the opportunity to silently protest Mayor Gray’s plan to park 65 Bolt buses on the grounds of the historic Alexander Crummell School. And I feel I was good at getting people involved and wanting to stand up for the community they call home. I am definitely going to continue volunteering for Empower DC to keep the fight going in the community.

Moniya: One thing that I learned with empower DC is that you can always help with stuff. And that it was good to visit and learn new things. Empower DC changed me. I learned that you can always feel comfortable going and talking to an adult and how to have confidence. What I did not like was talking to people and getting people to come to meetings because at times they were rude. But even though people were rude there was a possibility they would attend the meeting. When I first started I was tired of walking around but I eventually got used to it. And I felt so happy when I would attend meetings and people I made contact with attended.

Stephon “Steph” Scarborough at 3.

Steph: Our amazing organization, Empower DC, has taught me a lot and it was a wonderful experience. Furthermore it was pretty excellent that the program was constructive, positive and productive. Our campaign that we are pursing has a good sense of justice and a large amount of significance. I am looking forward to starting an Empower DC band. The band will aim to reach out to people and tell them about our Ivy City community and all the hardships that we endure. Empower DC has been great to me and I will love to stay for future initiatives.

Amari McCray

Amari: My name is Amari. My summer with Empower DC was good while interning with the Grassroots Media Project. The experience was really good for me because I normally would be out with friends stealing bikes. While working with empower DC I learned how to operate the video camera and learned how to film different progressive events.