[Music] The resources that Milwaukee fellows uh provide is really uh for me is is more essential in terms of the mentorship and the resources.

Uh to start from the mentorship, the people that we have here such as John, Daniel, a few other mentors uh his son uh Regina etc.

um they provide a seasoned outlook um based on their experience and how they evolve through the city of Milwaukee and other other places around the world.

Um, if anything, they definitely uh are genuine and in and take, you know, take take strong pride in in being able to show us the way uh in terms of how best to navigate through life and best navigate through Milwaukee.

Um and also they want us to be able to have as much exposure as possible to the things that are very very promising in life in terms of you know financial literacy or or corporate leadership or really just be uh in this space determining you know how you may want to uh progress you know your life or your career.

So for me I want to be a lawyer.

So I've been exposed to so many of the renowned attorneys that we know of.

As a matter of fact two weeks ago I was just with Eric Holder um all because of attorney Dames.

So the mentorship is definitely uh a key aspect and the resources, scholarships, uh the outings such as the uh uh fellowship open these type of events.

They they bring people from all over the world that we may see on TV or read about and we actually get to shake hands with these people and talk, you know, talk to these people and really learn more about them.

They learn more about us and we can see how we can further connect and progress, you know, and see what we can learn from each other.

Joining me now is the director of the Milwaukee Fellowship Open, William Billy Young.

Billy, thank you uh so much for joining us here on Black Novo.

Thanks again, Earl.

We were just recounting, man, a long deep relationship we've had with Black Novo with Milwaukee Public TV.

Uh my brother Everett Marshburn, you know, and just a host of of folks who've been there.

We appreciate the opportunity to be able to tell our story.

Uh thank you.

Yep.

Talk about that story and glad you're here.

Talk about that story.

It's been uh 25 years with this fellowship open.

So talk about the impact it's had and how you've been able to get so many historic figures and uh big hitters to support this.

Uh well let's start out with the concept.

You know 25 years man when you in a in a heartbeat uh but it really began with the concept uh and a mission uh towards community empowerment and specifically youth engagement.

So, the the uh originators, attorney John Daniels, uh Joe Kennedy, uh uh who was Hank Aaron's best friend.

And many people remember Joe Kennedy as a as a as as an educator here, founded the Academy at New Testament, uh were not only engaged in just sort of general community service, but had a particular affinity as what were many of the people I was involved with, in particular, uh Willie Davis, uh wanted to give back to the community, but really had an impact through uh youth development, sports, athletics, those kinds of things.

So, uh, several years ago, Brian Gumble, who many people will remember, was doing a golf tournament, uh, in support of, uh, H.B.CU and was raising like a million bucks a year.

Uh, they ran into some issues and ended up ending that, as I recall, uh, behind two, you know, 911.

So, a lot of stuff happened just in terms of travel and those kinds of things.

but the idea of a charity golf tournament because so many people were sort of gravitating toward that as a potential vehicle.

So, we went through a number of diff of iterations with our good friends and folks at the Milwaukee Brewers primarily.

Uh Hank Aaron had his charity at the time we were supporting.

Long story short story man is we were able to it was attorney Daniels and many of his colleagues who were able to connect corporate uh Wisconsin folks like the Misaias Vis Colbert you know just a litany of African-American entrepreneurs CEOs and people are involved in uh entre entrepreneurship and corporate leadership here and man boom 25 years later now we've raised uh almost $5 million we have assisted approximately 140 or so youthbased youth initiatives, youth organizations over that period of time and continue to do so this year with four uh youth organizations that we will be supporting as a result of the funds we raised this year.

So, uh it's great great run.

Oh, nice.

And uh I mean even beyond the money, just talk about the impact that the uh fellowship open has had uh you know beyond just charity and uh really what you've been able to do with the young folks.

While I am a native of Los Angeles, California, I I lived almost 30 years, man, uh and breathe Milwaukee.

My sons are there, my family are there, my officiating buddies, people who also know my affinity for uh youth sports.

Uh and there are challenges challenges that exist in Milwaukee that difficult although they may be are common to South Central LA, to Gary, Indiana, to you know, New Orleans, Louisiana.

Those challenges are what we uh attempt to address through what has become our uh nationally acclaimed uh fellowship uh program fellowship uh supported program the MKA fellows.

That program is now supported by the NBA Foundation, by United Way International, and over over uh 50 different corporate supporters uh across the nation, including the PGA and others that you can take a look at.

The idea of the MK fellows was to grab these young African-American males as high school students and do everything that we could to create a a supportive environment vehicle to do what we could to almost virtually guarantee that they would graduate in four years.

And then our commitment to them in terms of a holistic program was for them, give us a couple years back, graduate, come back to Milwaukee, uh, give us some service.

We're now 12, 13 years into that program.

Several, uh, cohorts have graduated, and many of those young people are now back in Milwaukee.

Most recently, we talked about Kyle Williams, who just graduated a couple of months ago, WMadison Law School.

His mentor is right here.

who's working in Milwaukee uh as a lawyer and he has testimony along with now dozens and dozens each year we're graduating 6 12 15 students.

We currently support 200 young men uh across the country at about 30 different colleges and universities and our goal within the next three to five years is to double that program to 400.

Uh and that's our mission uh starting right now our 25th anniversary.

Billy, we got a couple seconds left.

Is there anything else you want to tell us about the program?

How uh folks get involved with the open?

Just uh anything you have the floor.

Well, we articulate well, man.

You know, uh I'm OG, you know, I'm like over there, you know, but uh the interactions I have with my young counterparts who social media, so information is available, you know, fellowship open easily, MK fellows, you can see all of those statistics.

But I guess my point was in referencing sort of all of the challenges that I see quite often because I'm back in Milwaukee, you know, four, five, six times a year, uh, we address through a positive approach to the empowerment and development of the leaders of tomorrow.

And we're not talking we're talking about the next election cycle.

We're talking about uh uh right now the mayor, the county executive, the police chief, the county sheriff.

These are all people interact with us on a regular basis.

We understand the challenges and the guys that we are preparing are making those decisions within our you know not only within our lifespan but within the next couple of years in the next court of leadership.

So we're doing everything that we can do to focus on that empowering them so they can deal with the problem many of the problems that we've left them with and that they're challenged with.

Uh and we're doing we thank corporate Milwaukee.

We thank MPTV and those people who can support us with that message.

Um, call me.

I'm available.

And we thank you, Billy Young.

Thank you again for being here with us on Black Novo.

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