Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Join The Urban Rez for an exciting journey that dives into the intersections of culture, sports, and lifestyle with a fresh, global, inclusive perspective. Each 30-minute episode brings a unique blend of conversations, stories, and interviews that explore the passions and experiences that define our lives.
Announcer 0:00
This is a KU N, V studios original program.
Wesley Knight 0:04
The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 jazz and more the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.
Marcus White 0:22
I and good morning, everybody. Good morning, happy Sunday. Dr B, is not here today. She's traveling. Dr B, safe travels to you and wish you were here. This is going to be an awesome show, everybody. We have a special guest today that I want to introduce you to. She is the bomb.com very energetic. She's doing great things that I believe no one is really knowing about. So I wanted to have her here and she'll tell you all about herself in the organization. So her name is TJ Mercer. She is the founder of move in day mafia, a nonprofit that equips foster youth and under resourced HBCU students with fully furnished dorm rooms and year long support. A former Hollywood editor and producer with over 25 years of experience, she's worked on projects for ABC, NBC, MTV and major films like Shrek and the Incredibles. TJ is an is an award winning author and dynamic speaker known for her unapologetic passion and purpose driven storytelling. Through her work, she's building a pipeline from foster care to college graduation, one student at a time. TJ, thank you again for being on the urban Rez.
Teej Mercer 2:19
It is an honor. Hey, Marcus,
Marcus White 2:23
hey, oh man, so let's jump right in. What is moving day mafia?
Teej Mercer 2:32
So moving day mafia is something that was actually, to be honest with you, it's an answer to a prayer. I'm gonna keep it 100 with you. I had just moved to Atlanta after living in LA for 25 years, and decided, during the pandemic, I decided that I was lonely, and I wanted to, you know, create something that would bring joy to everybody. And I created a virtual bingo game that took off that led to me creating HBCU bingo. That Marcus is where we raised over $1 million in cash and private in less than four weeks, and we gave it away to the 2020, Grads of HBCUs who had lost their graduation because of the pandemic. From there, I met a young lady who, because it broke and made national media, and a young lady who was one of our grads, I learned that when she went to her HBCU, she had aged out of foster care, and she told me that her social worker pulled up to campus let her unload what little she had, and then just left her. And for some reason that just stuck with me, that broke my heart, so I asked God to show me how I could do something that this would not happen to another student and move in. Dave mafia was born.
Marcus White 3:57
That is awesome. And again, you are a Howard University graduate,
Teej Mercer 4:03
which I am, a graduate of the Howard University. Yes, sir,
Marcus White 4:09
I hear you. I hear you. You know, shout out to the bisons out there, all the bisons. And, of course, you know, I attended South Carolina State University. Shout out to the Bulldogs.
Teej Mercer 4:21
Yes, we actually are moving in two students at South Carolina State this year. And, in fact, Marcus, I am smack Dave in the middle of moving season right now. I am, right now sitting at Lane college moving in a couple of scholars. There we're doing 23 scholars at 13 HBCUs this year. Oh, wow. If you want to volunteer and donate, please go over to moving day mafia.org because, yeah, 23 students, 13 HBCUs. It takes us about $5,000 per student per year. And the reason. Why we're special with that Marcus is the fact that move in is just the beginning for us. We don't just move them in. It's like, okay, figure out the rest. We actually send them care packages every single month for four years. So we need the support from the community, from HBCU alum so yes, moving day, mafia.org, you can find out all the HBCUs that we are moving in this year. So far, we've done 84 students at 21 HBCUs since 2022 when we started.
Marcus White 5:35
That is awesome, man. And again, and we both know, you know, for me, coming from California and then going to South Carolina State, I had no family over there, nobody. And so I know how it is, you know, just being by yourself, but yet having support. So I couldn't even imagine, you know, being in foster care and then coming out of foster care and and that's it. And share with us the whole
Teej Mercer 6:04
like you don't have anybody to call, right? You like you, at least have people you could call. Our students typically are showing up by themselves. Like the student that we are just moving in at Lane, she showed up to school by herself, by herself, with what she could actually carry, and not to mention Marcus. The other thing is, our babies are surviving and overcoming tremendous odds. First of all, understand that 70% of kids in foster care dream of going to college, yet 3% go and only 1% graduate. Now, let me add to that. HBCUs are underfunded, right and but they are seeing massive influx of students. So for example, Howard last year had, I think, 46 applications or 2000 spots. Clark, Atlanta had 20 100 applications for 1600 spots. We moved in six Clark students last year. So not only are our kids beating the odds, they're beating the odds and getting into elite HBCUs and so it is our job, our mission, to get these babies to the finish line.
Marcus White 7:26
Oh, absolutely, absolutely. And again, I I'm so happy that I was able to get some of my fraternity brothers, the men of phi, Beta Sigma Fraternity, Incorporated to help out at South Carolina State and also at Delaware, state, so, you know. So I want to, I want to fall back a little bit and talk about you, and because you are a stunning, wonderful woman, and you have done so much, you know, spending over, you know, two decades and Hollywood, you know, and, yeah, and being, you know, credited work for, like, Shrek, the Chronicles of Narnia, Kung Fu, Panda night school and shaft. I mean, what made you go down that road to really want to get into, you know, going to Hollywood to do production.
Teej Mercer 8:22
So first of all, let me just tell you a fun fact, I'm probably one of my my biggest achievements is I probably am the only person on the planet who Samuel L Jackson called an MF and cheerleader. Let me tell you like, I wear that as a bag of art,
Marcus White 8:42
as you should.
Teej Mercer 8:46
But to, but to your question, I've always been a creative Marcus. I've always been a storyteller. So, you know, naturally storyteller, and then a trained storyteller. And so when I went to the Howard University, my major was in television. I didn't start out that way. I actually went in as an international business major, and was miserable because I am not a left brain thinker. I don't like logistics. You got my team knows we got one spreadsheet per meeting for me to look at. Otherwise, I want to be in my head. I want to be creating stories. I want to let my imagination run wild. So being a storyteller for 25 years, getting paid for it, having millions upon millions of people see work, there is just no better feeling. I feel so fortunate and so blessed that that was the career, you know, that I actually majored in and got to spend so many years in, and where that is really helping and translating for me now is I am a speaker. I get paid to run my mouth for for a living. And. And to I love to go to my eighth grade English teacher because I learned the definition of loquacious, because she was always putting me in the front of the room so she could watch me. That ain't stopping my talking. And I was so proud to be able to go to her and say, Miss Douglas, I get paid 1000s of dollars to run my mouth now, and so it doesn't become a full circle moment where my storytelling translates to the stage and then my storytelling translates to sharing the students stories now so that people can really see who they are, helping the students the odds they're coming across like, for example, one of the students that we're moving in this year, Marcus. She lost her mother, she lost her four month old baby brother, and she lost her favorite cousin at the hands of the mother's ex boyfriend. And yet, this happened in ninth grade, and yet this baby is on her way to Spelman on
Marcus White 11:02
full scholarship. That's what I'm talking about. So
Teej Mercer 11:05
I love that you know what I did for 25 years is now coming full circle, that I get to actually share these scholars stories in a way that people understand these are the kids that are worth us fighting for,
Marcus White 11:24
and you often say, building a foster care to HBCU graduate pipeline. How do you actually make that happen, one scholar at a time?
Teej Mercer 11:35
So one of the things, the first thing we do is we have applications, and then we interview the scholars, and then we show up on move in day with everything they need. It is important to me, and crucial to me Marcus, that we give our scholars choice. Many of them are sharing. Have come from environments where they are sharing boxes in the basement, right? They're giving hand me down for the four years that they're with us. They get a choice on what they actually want to put on their body, what they want to put in their hair, what they want to brush their teeth with, and it's no greater feeling of when you see a student, they love the room. Understand, our rooms are all decorated by one of my best friends, Nikki clue Design Group. She's been our designer since day one. So she designs their room to the specifications of the things that they like, the favorite colors, and they the students, love the room. But you know what actually produces tears often, and what produces them grabbing me and hugging me is when they open up their closet and they see that we bought their favorite maxi pad, they see we bought their favorite candy bars. That's the thing that lights me up when they know we're paying attention to them. And then every month when we do their care packages, we do care packages the 14th through the 21st of every month, we call it adopt a scholar week, and that's where our donors, our supporters, can actually go buy off the wish list that the stock the scholars have actually produced themselves, Because I want them to have choice.
Marcus White 13:22
I like that. I like that a lot. And so what are the biggest misconceptions people have about foster youth stepping onto a college campus?
Teej Mercer 13:34
I don't know if they have misconceptions about stepping onto the college campus, but what I have found is that they want. Often people want, let me put it to you like this. We got a email from a from a supporter who had looked at the wish list. And I think on this particular wish list, it was a wig for $80 or something like that, and or they were choosing name brand item. And so he was concerned about, you know, what we were teaching them, how they're learning to budget the cost of some of the items. And what I found, unfortunately, is we think, you know, foster care, they should, we they shouldn't ask for the best, right? And that's what I'm trying to make sure people understand that these kids are worth it if they then. Now understand we give them a budget that they have to stick to every month, but they get to choose if they want an $80 wig. They get to choose if they want a generic brand of white versus a name brand of white. They get to choose that. I don't want to take that away from them, but the misconception is that they should, you know, just kind of accept what is given, because we are helping. And when I explained that to the to the donor, he actually sent me a very lovely message, and was like, I understand. I'm on board. I. I get it, but for the four years that they're with us, they got the rest of their lives to actually decide if they want generic or name brand. For the four years they with us, I want them to have a choice,
Marcus White 15:12
yeah, and having a choice, especially during those years, because we can both reflect around that. You know, that's something that you know, we, you know, as you as we're in college, you know, we're putting into the practice of what we've learned, you know, and being on your own, and so having choices is definitely, you know, commended. And I'm happy that you guys are doing that so
Teej Mercer 15:38
often. They're often not giving the opportunity to try something. You know, these kids love them from Tiktok. They love them some EOS lotion and some world snack. Why? Because they see this stuff on Tiktok. They want to try it. Right? If they didn't have mafia, they would have to watch their counterparts try these things, and then maybe, you know, be longing for it, but that's not what we do in Mafia. And it's just like any parent, any parent would be willing to let their students try their their kid try something, and then they know they may not like it, but at least they got to try and decide for themselves. That's what we want to give them.
Marcus White 16:18
That's good. So what has been the most emotional or transform made transformative Move In Day moment for you personally,
Teej Mercer 16:31
they all kind of rank up there. The greatest feeling is more of just a feeling that, you know, I've interviewed them, oftentimes Marcus, they think we're too good to be true. They have anxiety of whether or not we're going to show up. I know what it was. It's prayer view. I know what it was. And I interviewed this student, and it was like four of my team on the interview on Zoom, and I could tell she was not easy, but I didn't know what was going on with her. And so finally she asked us, can we all go around and introduce ourselves and tell her where we all are? So I was like, okay, and we did. And I figured out when she said that all y'all just gonna come here to help me, y'all gonna just come in from different parts of the country to help me. And I was like, yeah. And so I went to stop short of business giving this baby my flight number, because she just did not believe it. And so when we got to Prairie View, my team got out and, you know, did the preliminary things. I was still sitting in the car doing some work or whatever, and I could hear her them telling her, yeah, Auntie TJ is in the car. And she's like, she is. I don't believe it she is. And when I stepped foot out of that car and that baby laid eyes on me, she grabbed me in the biggest hug and held me for days. And so if I go back to the moment, oftentimes, when they first meet me, they grab me so tight and just hold on. That is the biggest feeling. Because I know now they know we are real and we are coming for them, and we're going to be there for him, for them. And when we get feedback, they have to tell me, every month was when good going on for them and what challenges they're having and what we're seeing the feedback is they love the mentor. Check in. They love their mentors, constantly checking in, making sure that things are good. I mentor. Sit on the phone sometimes with housing, they sit on the phone with them, with the financial aid office, because we are making sure they don't navigate these things alone.
Marcus White 18:50
And that's and that's huge. I mean, that is huge, and that's so commendable. And you get me excited over here, like, I'm like, I'm back at church. Definitely excited. So on a lot of times, especially these days, many nonprofits struggle to scale. How did you get corporate giants like Best Buy, Amazon and Cisco to say, yes?
Teej Mercer 19:16
Okay, so I could give you, you know, a deep answer, but the truth of the matter is, I did it. I The one thing that I'm good at, and one thing I'm gifted at, is my power to influence people to get on a board of my do Gooding shenanigans, and all I do is run my mouth and let people know I'm very, very loud on when I need help. In fact, I have an upcoming TED talk called the my the superpower we've all been taught to hide. And for me, my superpower is I'm needy, and I don't have a problem letting people know I'm needy. I will put it out there I need. Need help. And so as I've done this the whole way, I have a I have this mantra that my team know, and I let anybody know who's going to volunteer and work on anything that I'm building, is that we will build this plane as we fly it. Because I'm clear I don't have to have all my T's dot cross, or all my I's dotted, because I'm going to put it out there that I need help. And so when I have put it out there, I'm always talking about it. Somebody has followed me that works at a corporate giant. I'm not sure if we can mention, you know, my partner, but somebody's always following me, and they come and knock on my door. I don't necessarily do it. I actually, as a woman of faith, all I do is follow the instructions that God gives me, and I know that's not the deep answer that you know. I decided and sat down that we want to do $200,000 this year, and we put together a proposal. No, sir, I run my mouth and tell people I need help. Those people tag some people, or those people show up at something where I'm speaking and they hear me talking about Mafia, and then they slide into my inbox. So I don't have a real big strategy for that yet. I'm sure that day is coming, you know, but for now, it's just me running my mouth
Marcus White 21:18
and again, I mean, the cause that you're doing and the people that you're you're the kids that you're helping. I mean, let's be real. A lot of kids throughout this country who are in foster care fall through the gaps. They follow the gaps. And
Teej Mercer 21:33
what's happening is people are not just like me. I hadn't thought about this population before. So when these people you know, a hair man. They're HBCU alum. They always, I never thought about that. How can I help? I work for x, y, z, we have, we have 10s of 1000s of dollars that we can, you know, use to help you. T What do you need? That literally, really is the conversation
Marcus White 22:01
my and the vision that you have is spectacular, really spectacular. So next question I have for you is, what message to someone who's sitting on a powerful idea but scared to launch it, what message would you tell them?
Teej Mercer 22:18
First of all, admit that you're a needy I find that a lot of people get stuck because their ego or their that feeling of shame that can come over us sometimes, of asking for help, anything that you're sitting on as a big idea you're going to need help. I hate the term self made. I'm either community made, God made, but self made. Never anything that requires things to change, and you are disrupting the system. Anything big that's going to have impact, you are going to need help. That's the first thing. The second thing I will say that has worked for me is I don't wait till things are perfect. I move on what information I have in the moment, and then I trust my faith and God to work the rest out. I don't wait for T's to get caught. I don't wait for I's to get dotted. I move because I am said, if 84 students to this day are happy that I didn't have to have everything perfect, that I was just willing to start right and build the plane as it fly it.
Marcus White 23:35
And it's funny, because I was talking to my my father yesterday, and it just made me like, think of this. He's working on the sermon, and it's called put legs. Yeah, I'm a PK. I'm a PK. Man, I love it. It was just interesting. So yesterday, it was like, put legs on your faith and walk it out. Means stop waiting for perfect conditions and start walking in obedience. And right when you said that, that really what made me think of that, of the discussion that we had yesterday, and I'm not gonna get no scripture, but, but No, and that's, and that's the thing too, is like, when you've been given instructions, you know, move like, and a lot of people, I think a lot of people, get stuck on the, you know, oh yeah, I have faith, but they're not doing the works. And expect everything they want to get, everything they're supposed to get without doing the works, and it's like, yeah, it doesn't work like that. But let me get off my high horse. How has your HBCU experience at Howard shaped your vision for what these students need?
Teej Mercer 24:58
I want to say that it was just my. My Howard experience. I grew up in an HBCU family, so I always knew that I wanted to go on HBCU. So this is coming from just my love of HBCU that was there before Howard. Howard just solidified it like that was the I can't speak for anybody else's experience, but Howard was one of the best things for me. And because I understand HBCU culture, I live HBCU culture, then that is why, you know, we've had, you know, people call and ask, like, Well, why are you all we've had racist calls, you know, and ask, you know, why are you only taking care of the N word and, you know, and I'm just like, well, first of all, that's not the case. The only requirement for us is you were at an HBCU. But we have moved in several different non black kids. I don't care. I care about HBCU culture, and so just coming out of it, walking it, living it. My bro, my mom is an HBCU alum. My uncle is my brother is my sister in law, like I just come out of an HBCU culture. So it makes sense that the mission of Mafia for right now, when you ask me about scaling, I ain't stopping until we have a mafia chapter on every single HBCU
Marcus White 26:22
campus. And how many and how many campuses are there in the country? 101 remaining 107
Teej Mercer 26:30
are created under the HBCU Act of, I think, 1960 something. I can't remember when, but there were 107 designated HBCUs. 101 remain today. And I can tell
Marcus White 26:46
you, I mean, I wasn't even going to college. And one of my buddies like, hey, you know, looking at going to South Carolina State, you should come with me. I'm like, okay, oh, wow. And again, I'm a first, you know, person, first male out of my my cousins to graduate from from college, and then I'm the first person on my father's side to graduate from college. So, you know, so having that, that experience of South Carolina State, was fun. You know it. You know, being the PK, but you know, going playing football, running track, and then the food, I was like, man, get corned beef hash every morning for for breakfast, some grits. I'm like, what? Man, no, it was. It was great. So in this last question, so in five years, what does the move in Dave mafia movement look like, and how can the rest of us help build it now.
Teej Mercer 27:43
Well, the way I have watched us grow and scale to, you know, up until this point, I would say, like in five years, hope, you know, we will be halfway to our goal of being at 101 moving day mafia chapter. But the way my faith is set up, and the way I watched it just blow up in a short amount of time, while we know five years, we already are there in five years with all chapters right, and then I would like to see, in five years that we're operating with a $10 million budget that all of our kids are taking care of. We have expanded services to make sure we're covering, you know, emergencies that we have corporate partners that are covering summer summer residents, because a lot of our kids have to couch surf during the summer break, the Christmas break, because they don't have permanent residence. So I would like to see a summer cohort with, you know, companies in tech or something, where our students come and spend the whole summer in the cohort. So I got dreams. I got big visions for what could happen in five years, and
Marcus White 29:01
it shall come to pass. So I'm a firm believer in that, because you putting forth the work and have outlets like myself and TV and tick tock and Instagram and Facebook. I mean, these folks that will who are meant to see it, will see it, and you will definitely get that so thanks again for being with us. I mean everyone more information. Move In Day mafia.org to get more information about this organization. TJ, it's been a pleasure, and I wish you the best of luck. And you know me, I'm always gonna be here for you, so just let me know whatever you need.
Teej Mercer 29:42
Thank you, Marcus, hug yourself for me, I appreciate you.
Marcus White 29:46
Thank you. Everybody. Enjoy the rest of your Sunday. Have an awesome week, and we look forward to talking to you next month.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai