VISION
Imagine a community where everyone invests $50, $500, or even $1000 towards their young adults. Every student would be in a better place to become a successful member of their community. This scholarship aims to provoke the spirit of investment into our youth. Hopefully, once the spirit is engaged, students will see the importance of investing into their own communities. That is our dream, and I’ve realized WE NEED YOU to make this happen!
I wish the idea of community members investing in young adults spreads like wildfire throughout every corner of our city, providing all students a scholarship. Whether you choose to donate or not, I hope this idea captivates you to find your own passion. I hope that this story inspires you to answer the question, What can I do right now to benefit my community?
EBE HISTORY
In the spring of 2020, COVID-19 shook the world. Classes were canceled, families broken, and the world as we knew it was forever changed. Due to the pandemic, I was forced to take a full year of school and work off. As I sat at home during that break, a name rang across the country, Ahmaud Arbery. The news described a modern day lynching of a 25-year-old black man. While jogging, Ahmaud was brutally murder at the hands of 3 white men. I remember watching the news, teeth clenched and rage roaring through my body. Months later, the name George Floyd echoed across the earth. I shielded my eyes at the video showing a police officer strangling a man to death on the streets of Minneapolis. Defeat and hopelessness washed over me as tears filled my eyes.
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Responding to these murders, activists around the world organized and took to the streets in protest. The largest civil rights movement ever recorded. Eager to participate in these demonstrations yet knowing the severity and uncertainty of COVID-19 I was conflicted. I worried for my family’s health. I decided that at this moment, this was not how I should fight back. I thought there must be another way. Then it hit me, “A scholarship!”
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I remembered how community-based scholarships heavily assisted my personal growth, education, and set me on track to become a positive community member. I decided at that moment, “This is how I can make change.” From there I typed out my ideas, created applications, and put aside $500 of my own as the first donation. Next, I posted the information across all social media platforms, contacted Mt. Clemens school officials, and messaged every single person I knew asking to please help with this cause. Over the following 3 months family, friends, and strangers helped raise just over $3,500. And in June of 2021, I passed out 7 scholarships worth $500 each to 7 graduating Mt. Clemens High School students. All who planned to be first generation college graduates. The first ever Everybody Eats Scholarship winners!
The name "EBE"
The name Everybody Eats (EBE) first took root in the 2010’s of Mt. Clemens High School, where a collection of black teen students and community members decided to add a tangible title to their web of relationships. The symbolic bond of like-minded young people taking it upon themselves to create their own family in a greater community which attempted to force all to fit one mold. Rebelling as nonconformist but labeled a gang from teachers and other adults, the name Everybody Eats spanned across the city. To many residents who didn’t understand their young black neighbors, this was viewed as a potential threat to their quiet communities. As time went on the name slowly faded from the limelight. EBE sustained by just a few of its founding members.
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In 2020 I decided to create an annual scholarship fund specifically for students at Mt. Clemens High School. A former student, I understood the disconnect between our city and school. I experienced the lack of resources, I watched our administrators abandon us every 2 years, and I felt the weight of poverty plague our predominantly black student population. However, I also experienced bonds of brotherhood and sisterhood, I watched rebellion resonate to resilience across our student body, and I felt pride in a people who built a palace out of the scraps our city dealt us. The original Everybody Eats members understood that experience and provided terminology for us. Reflecting upon those experiences and better understanding our past, the name of this scholarship came effortlessly. EBE, Everybody Eats. An organic title and phrase cultivated by and for the kids of the Clem.
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When you hear the title, Everybody Eats it is imperative that you not only think of the scholarship, but you remember the young black student trailblazers of the Clem. You remember the will to strive for fellowship, to resist the constraints placed upon us, and to take pride in yourself and peers. EBE has not been forgotten and cannot be stopped because it is not a group, it is not a scholarship, and it is not a memory…
Everybody Eats IS a MOVEMENT
