Today we’re excited to be connecting with Korbin Lawson again. If you haven’t already, we suggest you check out our prior conversation with them here.
Korbin , thanks for joining us again. Just to level set a bit for folks who may have missed our last interview together, can you briefly introduce yourself?
I’m Korbin Lawson Founder of the I Can Be nonprofit organization. Starting “I Can Be” wasn’t easy. I initially thought doing something good would naturally attract support, but that wasn’t always the case. It was a tough lesson, but it drove me to work even harder. We’ve grown from donating just 50 notebooks to 100 backpacks full of supplies, all while I’ve worked extra hours to fund it. We’ve also become officially tax-exempt. I want to encourage others not to be discouraged by the challenges. It’s possible to make a significant impact, even if it’s not easy. The foundation started as just an idea, and now we’ve changed many lives and helped hundreds of students.
Great, so let’s jump into an update on what you have been up to since we last spoke. What can you share with us?
As the organization stands today it is what I dreamt it would be, although there’s still a lot of work to do. I feel it’s important to take the time and reflect on how we got here. We been able to secure enough funding to break out of just the classrooms and help more students. Last we spoke We were donating enough school supplies for about 2 classrooms, now with the help of officially being tax exempt, we’re able to donate 100 backpacks filled with school supplies, hire landscaping companies to clean overgrown playgrounds and fields near the schools and organize trash walks that encourage people to pick up trash around the school making it a cleaner and safer environment.
We also want to give folks a chance to get to know you a bit better so we’ve prepared a fun lightning round of questions. Ready?
- Favorite Movie: The Lion King
- Favorite Book: The 4 agreements
- Favorite TV Show: One piece
- Favorite Band or Artist: J Cole
- Sweet or Savory: Savory
- Mountains or Beach: Beach
- Favorite Sport (to watch): Football
- Favorite Sport (to play): Football
- Did you play sports growing up (if so which ones): Football, soccer, basketball
- As a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up: I wanted to be in the NFL
- French Fries or Onion Rings: Fries
- Chuck Rhodes or Bobby Axelrod: Malcom X
- Favorite Cartoon growing up: Avatar the last air bender
- Favorite Childhood movie: The Scooby doo movie with zombies
- Favorite Breakfast Food: French toast & egg whites
What do you want people to remember about you and your brand? What are some of things that you feel are most important, unique, special, etc?
The one thing I want people to truly understand is something that might be a hard pill to swallow is that real change doesn’t happen just because it sounds good.
The truth is, a lot of people only care when it’s convenient. But if you want to see change, you have to be willing to put in the work. Support is more than just an Instagram like. And trust me, I get that not everyone has extra time to give. But here’s the reality…through our distributors, each backpack we donated cost less than a meal at Chick-fil-A. Yet, despite that, we didn’t get as many donations as we needed. If something that small could’ve made a difference, imagine how much more we could’ve done if more people showed up.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: Icanbe2018
Image Credits
Klaw Media Collective
