Transform Michigan

Joining us today is Kimberly Perry, the Development Director at VIP Mentoring. Kimberly N. Perry, Esq. is known for putting children first in her fight for equality. For more than 20 years she has been dedicated to working with young people in hopes of providing them with the tools to build a support system that will follow them throughout their lives. Born, raised and educated in the City of Detroit and beginning as a peer tutor in middle school, Kimberly has always been eager to help and give anything she has that can be a benefit to others.

Angela Waters Austin and  Cameo King are hosting and this weekend we start our conversations on youth service with Richard Carson, Director of MBK Michigan, a mentoring and volunteer generation initiative of Michigan Community Service Commission. He is here to discuss My Brother's Keeper, and other mentoring programs in Michigan.

Michele Strasz is director of the Capital Area College Access Network. Strasz has served as executive director of School-Community Health Alliance of Michigan and program director for the Michigan Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Strasz brings to CapCAN an extensive knowledge of children's public policy and advocacy.

This weekend on Equity Equals we continue our celebration of powerful women by airing our conversation with Bonnie Bucqueroux, founder and host of Lansing Online News and professor at Michigan State University among other endeavors. Bonnie provides a perspective on policing and public safety that is ultimately about the double bottom-line impact of inequity.

Lakeshore Ethnic Diversity Alliance is a grassroots organization dedicated to fostering racial justice. Gail Harrison founded the organization in June 1996 and became its first Executive Director in January 1999. The Diversity Alliance has been effective in implementing programs and events to increase understanding of a common language and framework for advancing racial equity and expand recognition of the impact of implicit bias. The Diversity Alliance has mobilized literally thousands of local residents to volunteer in efforts to eliminate racial barriers and advance inclusion, through education, advocacy, and engagement in Diversity Alliance programs. (Please see website: www.ethnicdiversity.org).

The Michigan Nonprofit Association (MNA) is a statewide membership organization that achieves its mission by serving the diverse, statewide nonprofit sector. Bill Gesaman is responsible for the strategic development and implementation of MNA's stakeholder engagement initiatives, and overseas, multiple programs that help nonprofits to become more effective and efficient. Prior to joining MNA, Bill held multiple positions with the Boy Scouts of America, and attended Michigan State University.

What happens when youth, parents, educators, clergy, public officials, philanthropic leaders, and business leaders embrace a common goal of economic equity to assure the future prosperity of their community?

This weekend on Equity Equals you will have the opportunity to be ‘in the room” with some of the most creative, committed and collaborative leaders in the nation as One Love Global convenes the 2nd quarterly MY Lansing MBK Action Summit.

Tune in for Part 2 of the orientation to the My Brother’s Keeper Milestones and an MBK Michigan grant awarded by Michigan Community Service Commission to organize a collaborative mentoring and volunteer generation network to support children from cradle to college, career and civic engagement.

This weekend’s Equity Equals show provides a snapshot of the work of One Love Global, Inc. as convener of MY Lansing, the Lansing region’s My Brother’s Keeper Challenge. Tune in for excerpts from the 2nd MY Lansing MBK Action Summit on the My Brother’s Keeper Milestones and the MY Lansing Pathways to Economic Equity. Excerpts include presentations from: Angela Waters Austin, president and CEO of One Love Global as well as host and producer of Equity Equals, DeLisa Fountain, co-founder and project director of NEON Lansing, and Cameo King, COO of One Love Global and associate producer of Equity Equals.

MY Lansing partners convened at Union Missionary Baptist Church for an orientation to a grant awarded by Michigan Community Service Commission to launch a mentoring and volunteer generation network.

This weekend on Equity Equals host Angela Austin has a conversation with Josh Dunn, Interim Director of Education for Culture Connect (www.cultureconnectinc.org) and a new resident of Michigan!

Josh Dunn was born in New York, but spent most of his life growing up in the northern suburbs of Atlanta, GA. He graduated from the University of Georgia summa cum laude with Bachelors of Arts in Linguistics and in Spanish, with a minor concentration in Arabic Studies. During college, Josh had the opportunity to practice his linguistic abilities by traveling and working abroad in Peru, Argentina, Uruguay and Morocco.

This weekend on Equity Equals we highlight segments with several of Michigan’s most innovative and passionate nonprofit leaders and social entrepreneurs. The Best of 2014 includes Manuel Pastor’s data driven projections of a “majority minority” America and the impact of changing demographics on life as we know it in Michigan. Shanell Henry, who provides the Equity Equals theme song, drops her newest music ministry project “By Design” produced by Soundsgood Records. Aida Cuadrado is a faith-based community organizer for Action of Greater Lansing, a Gameliel affiliate, which is an international organization with affiliates across the state of Michigan.