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Meet KaCey Venning of Helping Empower Youth in In the City – Washington Park

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Today we’d like to introduce you to KaCey Venning.

KaCey, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I moved to Atlanta in 1998 to attend the Historic Morris Brown College. I fell in love with the city and decided that I wanted to insert myself in the fabric of the city. In 2005, I returned to my hometown Virginia Beach, VA for a year and a half and decided I wanted to return to Atlanta.

I researched ways to return to Atlanta that would not only provide me with a living but a way to deepen my sense of giving back. That opportunity presented itself through the Hands On Atlanta AmeriCorps program. I served two terms as a Team Leader at Mary McLeod Bethune Elementary School located in the heart of Vine City. After my second term, I began working at Hands On Atlanta as one of their program managers. About two years later, I met one of my dearest friends who would become my business partner. Together, Marc “KD” Boyd and I founded Helping Empower Youth in the heart of the Old Fourth Ward. We wanted a formal way to continue the extension of the heart of service we both cultivated as AmeriCorps members. HEY! was born in April 2011 and it has since provided initiatives that allow young people to be inspired, motivated and mobilized to take action that changes their world.

I had learned during my time at Hands On Atlanta that so many corporations and large organizations would drop off these amazing gifts and resources to underserved and disempowered youth but didn’t stick around long enough to ensure the gifts and resources were wanted and could be fully utilized. HEY! Literally, started as a Saturday give back project to teach the youth of the Old Fourth Ward how to repair and in some cases ride the bicycles that had been dropped off by a major sports team. The youth asked us to come back and we did the next Saturday and the Saturday after that and a month became a year and a year has turned into eight. We have extended our reach to various neighborhoods in Atlanta and surrounding counties, but I get my most joy during those organic Saturday mornings showing young people that they are worthy of love just because they are here.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Absolutely NOT!! Finding funding and ongoing support was challenging in the beginning. A rhythm was needed and streamlining our service offerings were critical in order to secure funding and support beyond our personal pockets and those of our friends. To be honest, though, thank God for friends and family! They have made HEY! possible for many years. In addition to building a reputable and organizationally sound nonprofit, there was something else standing in the way of my ability to give the organization 100% of my energy and skill set. I had allowed illness to go unchecked and untreated.

As HEY! was growing and creating service opportunities for others, another passion of mine was growing in a unique way. In January 1997, when I was 16, I was suicidal. At the time, I was unsure as to why. I had the “perfect” childhood. Mommie and Daddie, aunts and uncles, cousins and friends and a huge extended family that included our family church. Looking from the outside in, there wasn’t a reason in the world as to why I should and would be suicidal. As my parents and my aunt found professional help for me, I learned I had a chemical imbalance. I was given a treatment plan that I ultimately felt I didn’t need and for 11 years, I lived symptom-free… or so I thought.

In 2008, I experienced severe mental and nervous breakdown. During my episode at that time, I found the strength to tell myself I wanted to live. To be honest, I didn’t know what kind of quality of life I would have, I just knew I wanted to live. After I was able to enter into treatment and therapy, I was able to begin the process of recovery and during that time, I began to tell my self that “I am built for this.” Above all else, I knew that God had a great plan for my life and I refused to allow a mental health diagnosis and illness keep me from fulfilling it. I would later come to understand that my very real diagnosis and my faith were meant to work together. In 2014, I birthed Built For This, it’s where mental health meets faith. It was a perfect merge between my work as a minister and my work serving youth. Today, I am excited to merge my two passions, youth empowerment, and mental health together.

Not only am I blessed to do what I love full time, but it has also given me the opportunity to author two books, Built for This: A Young Woman’s Journey to Self-Discovery and Empowerment and Wrestling With Peace – Where Mental Health Meets Faith. HEY! isn’t just a nonprofit or business, it’s a ministry to and for me.

Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Helping Empower Youth – what should we know?
HEY! is known for providing STEAM programming, HEY! Let’s Read, a reading and literacy initiative and through my personal platform Built For This, HEY! manages the youth-focused mental health advocacy and training that we do.

Our STEAM programming is mostly provided through Saturday programming and during after-school programming mostly within Atlanta Public Schools. This looks a bit nontraditional from what you may think of regarding STEAM. We excitedly expose students to activities and disciplines such as bicycles, go-karts, mechanical engineering, gardening, and sewing. This gives youth who believe they are not good at math or science to realize they engage STEAM every day.

HEY! Let’s Read happened organically and is probably my favorite story! I worked in an elementary school in Bankhead providing connections to wrap around services for students and families. During my time at the school, a book fair was scheduled. I was upset to learn that the large educational publisher most of us are familiar with, charged economically disadvantaged schools with higher deposits. So, instead of jumping on social media to just talk about my anger, I enlisted my co-founder and we decided to create our own book fair! To date, we have hosted over seven book fairs that focus on children and authors of color to encourage a love of reading.

Through Built For This, we are in a privileged and unique position to offer Youth Mental Health First Aid Training! I am a Nationally Certified Instructor through the National Council on Behavioral Health. The training does not equip people to diagnose, but it allows us to identify what is needed at that time until the youth is able to receive professional help if needed. We have engaged many youth who could have benefited from an adult to recognize the difference between ” bad behavior” and a sign or symptom of a larger problem.

Finally, we offer nonprofit, leadership and programming consultation and coaching. Our youth are too valuable for us to not help those who want to help our youth.

What sets us apart is that our goal is always youth-centered and focused. What I am most proud of is that we keep going, we keep serving, we keep giving!

Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
Wow! I don’t think there is enough space… because when you start calling names, you get in trouble, lol!

But there are a few I do credit each and every time. My Daddie instilled in me a love for people no matter how they behave, my Mommie taught me how to love with the discipline and to use teaching as an extension of that love. Definitely my business partner, who is also one of my closest friends, Marc – he teaches me patience daily but also encourages me to never allow my heart to rule without my head. Then, there is Roderick and Ilka Murray who constantly TELL me to keep going, quitting isn’t an option, ever. And Jennifer Nash who has supported HEY! through her professional resources, finances, manpower, and thought leadership.

Seriously, there isn’t enough room to list all those who have advocated and cheered us on. Atlanta has been good to HEY! From Bob at Edgewood Pizza to Starla at Cleveland Avenue Elementary. To Terence and Cecilia Lester who opened the doors of their organization Love Beyond Walls to us and the young people who open their hearts to us daily.

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Image Credit:
Keith Jackson, Mike Izenday

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