Today we’d like to introduce you to Korbin Lawson.
Korbin, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
The idea of starting my own organizing to help out the youth in my community came from watching the great Lebron James open his I Promise school. This gave me a lot of inspiration to start. The beginning was very nerve-racking and full of self-doubt, but after having a few conversations with myself, I sent the principal of my former elementary school an email at 2 am and the rest is history. Since then, I’ve been able to donate plenty of school supplies and sponsor their testing celebration by bringing water, juice and pizza for all the first and second graders.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Things were very shaky in the beginning with getting people to donate money and to help me out, for example on the morning of delivering the first set of schools supplies my friend driving the van couldn’t show up and my friend who was going to hand them out with me also couldn’t make it but I was able to call some more friends that helped me out. After the first time delivering supplies, I was able to develop a better game plan for down the road and ever since then things have been smooth sailing with delivering supplies and gathering donations.
We’d love to hear more about your organization.
The I Can Be organized is on a mission to end the school to prison pipeline that is affecting the youth in my community as well as enlightening them on the importance of education by assisting local schools in our district with supplying them with the tools necessary to enable students to succeed from school supplies to sports equipment. I’m very proud of myself and my team in what we have been able to accomplish so far and if there’s one thing that readers take with them from this article, I want it to be known that only one thing makes me any different from everyone else. I’m an African American college student who works a part-time job and has plenty of student loan debt. The only thing that sets me apart is that I took the initiative and stuck with it. You can do it too.
What were you like growing up?
I was a very social person. I liked to be apart of multiple friend groups with varying interests. I was friends with the student-athletes and the students that played Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh cards at lunch. Diversifying my friends was and still is a big thing for me.
Contact Info:
- Phone: 7134494676
- Email: lawsonb36@gmail.com and Icanbe2018@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/icanbe2018?igshid=bpt0oj9qxj3y
Image Credit:
Roy Ramos – Photographer
Nathaniel – Photographer/Videographer
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