Meet Christa Merix and Christopher Johnson of The Influence Crew in Jacksonville

Today we’d like to introduce you to Christa Merix and Christopher Johnson

Christa and Christopher, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I and my partner Christa Merix started The Influence Crew out of a need for more impacting events in our city of Jacksonville, Florida for young professional African Americans. We are both educated young professionals who had ideas for more culture and wasn’t seeing much action amongst our own community. We were always friends, but we decided with the same intent to create a platform that allowed us to contribute events and initiatives that bring more substantial aspects of African American culture to the city. We began with our first Juneteenth Gala event in 2017 and then created more events throughout the year. We are celebrating our 3rd annual Juneteenth event this year.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I don’t think any road to success is necessarily smooth. The bumps are apart of the process of becoming better and more knowledgeable of what you’re doing. It took time for Jacksonville to understand our purpose and start trusting us to implement events and initiatives that are not only enjoyable but also help the culture and pulls us together. Some events were great and some weren’t. Some initiatives worked, and some didn’t. Our goal is always to stay focused and consistent on creating a culture for young professionals and millennials within the culture.

The Influence Crew – what should we know? What do you do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
The Influence Crew was birthed out of necessity to create a more impacting culture in the city of Jacksonville, Florida. Our goal is to enhance the young professional community and redefine it by displaying African American culture through social gatherings. We plan to facilitate great events, that also spread true awareness to a needed cause. Our focus is not only to impact the community with social events but also to participate in community events that serve people in need. Whether it is clothing drives, events for the homeless, or back to school activities for the youth, we want to bring an action that is not normally seen in the Jacksonville community from young professionals. The definition of influence is the capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behavior of someone or something, or the effect itself. We feel with community support we can be the positive effect everyone wants to see in the city. This is for all cultural individuals who aspire to Influence positive messages. Together #wearetheinfluence

What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
Juneteenth by far. This was our very first event and the response we’ve gotten each year has been simply overwhelming. We introduced the event idea because we saw it being celebrated so many places, and wondered why nobody ever thought to celebrate such a historic holiday for our culture in our city. We wanted to think of an out of the box way to celebrate and the idea of a Gala was born. Our 3rd annual is this year and it is proving to be the best response we have gotten so far with more sponsors and local news coverage.

Contact Info:

• Website: Theinfluencecrew.com
• Email: [email protected]

Image Credit:
Christa Merix

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