WHY I DO WHAT I DO
My passion for creating educational entertainment for children at risk of falling through the educational cracks began in my neighborhood at Educational Ground Zero, Detroit, MI and was a response to seeing a 6 or 7 year old girl on my block twerk and say every inappropriate lyric from a popular ‘gansta’ rap song. She knew every word and said them with attitude. I had helped her with her homework previously and knew her reading skills were poor at best but she was a very intelligent girl who was very capable but considered reading, along with school, boring. She did not get any support from home, academically and I really felt sad for her and countless other children who had the cards stacked against them. In an attempt to make reading fun for her, I made a sock puppet as an educational aid to tutoring her in reading. It worked! We were reading the Detroit Free Press newspaper together and figuring out what all these big words meant before she graduated elementary school. Soon after I started using the sock puppet to assist my tutoring effort, children from all over the neighborhood began asking if my puppet could tutor them. I had an opportunity to make a difference so I researched puppet shows, wrote me a few educational skits and built a recycled puppet stage (refrigerator box), recycled puppets (old socks, empty grits/oatmeal/cereal boxes) and recycled props.
I held free educational puppet shows in my backyard. They were low budget and very cheesy but the community children enjoyed them and that was all that mattered to me. When I heard them laugh, clap to a hip hop beat or repeat after one of the puppets I knew I had something special. I began looking at this endeavor from the customers view point, something I learned during my years as a sales/service professional in corporate America. I used my imagination and a small budget. It did not take much to make my low budget puppet show a ‘destination’ for children, just make it fun. I served freshly popped popcorn and grape flavored Kool Aid with lemon flavored ice cubes (lemon ice). I am not that smart. It was inspiration from GOD. The children loved the ambiance that was created in my back yard on summer afternoons- sitting on the grass, munching pop-corn and drinking grape Kool Aid with lemon ice, rapping, singing, laughing at my home made puppets. One afternoon a grandmother who brought her daughter’s children made this comment- “Thank you for giving my grandchildren something more to do than play video games. Their momma is always at the bars or clubs and I am so glad you are giving my grandchildren an educational happy hour!” It was time to take it to the next level as Father Time's Educational Happy Hour.
Working with a local non-profit in Detroit, I designed The Read 2 Win Program. It was a literacy program that made reading fun and relevant for elementary school aged children. I used the proceeds from that collaboration to build a more professional puppet show. The Read 2 Win Program was used in the Detroit Public Schools for a number of years. I also took my more professional show on the road. I had the pleasure of performing and facilitating puppetry workshops at Boys and Girls Clubs in metro Detroit, in the Detroit Public School system, many churches, backyards and at the 2008 Michigan State Fair for a four (4) day engagement.
I had performed my final show at the State Fair and the person who gave me this opportunity had not seen it. In fact, she had never seen my performance. She had hired me on someone’s recommendation. As I was breaking down my show I finally saw her and asked if she wanted to see some of the performance. She smiled and nodded her head in the affirmative. I had broken down the curtain that allows me to see the audience while I perform; it’s good for puppet interaction with children. I decided to perform ‘blind'. I performed an educational rap in the blind. After the rap I popped out from behind my stage and saw 6 or 8 high school students who had watched the performance. They stood there in amazement, mouths opened and looking at my resident puppet rapper, A Puppet N Black. The lady who hired me chuckled. I think she knew then she got her money’s worth. These experiences keep me motivated.
I once accompanied my neighbor to a Detroit casino. I don’t gamble but he does so while he wasputting his money in the one armed bandit I go watch sports, people watch and drink as much of the free coffee and soda I can drink. I had just come from the refreshment bar with an ice cold Vernors ginger ale, going to the sports bar to watch some professional baseball when I hear someone shout “If I can read you can read, everybody read. That’s Sesame Street in the hood.” I followed the voice with my eyes and saw a vendor from the east side Detroit Flea Market I performed at about two (2) weeks prior. He was excited to see me as he told his friend “This guy had children dancing and clapping while they rapped the alphabet. It was like having Sesame Street in the neighborhood.” These experiences keep me motivated.
My passion for creating educational entertainment for children at risk of falling through the educational cracks began in my neighborhood at Educational Ground Zero, Detroit, MI and was a response to seeing a 6 or 7 year old girl on my block twerk and say every inappropriate lyric from a popular ‘gansta’ rap song. She knew every word and said them with attitude. I had helped her with her homework previously and knew her reading skills were poor at best but she was a very intelligent girl who was very capable but considered reading, along with school, boring. She did not get any support from home, academically and I really felt sad for her and countless other children who had the cards stacked against them. In an attempt to make reading fun for her, I made a sock puppet as an educational aid to tutoring her in reading. It worked! We were reading the Detroit Free Press newspaper together and figuring out what all these big words meant before she graduated elementary school. Soon after I started using the sock puppet to assist my tutoring effort, children from all over the neighborhood began asking if my puppet could tutor them. I had an opportunity to make a difference so I researched puppet shows, wrote me a few educational skits and built a recycled puppet stage (refrigerator box), recycled puppets (old socks, empty grits/oatmeal/cereal boxes) and recycled props.
I held free educational puppet shows in my backyard. They were low budget and very cheesy but the community children enjoyed them and that was all that mattered to me. When I heard them laugh, clap to a hip hop beat or repeat after one of the puppets I knew I had something special. I began looking at this endeavor from the customers view point, something I learned during my years as a sales/service professional in corporate America. I used my imagination and a small budget. It did not take much to make my low budget puppet show a ‘destination’ for children, just make it fun. I served freshly popped popcorn and grape flavored Kool Aid with lemon flavored ice cubes (lemon ice). I am not that smart. It was inspiration from GOD. The children loved the ambiance that was created in my back yard on summer afternoons- sitting on the grass, munching pop-corn and drinking grape Kool Aid with lemon ice, rapping, singing, laughing at my home made puppets. One afternoon a grandmother who brought her daughter’s children made this comment- “Thank you for giving my grandchildren something more to do than play video games. Their momma is always at the bars or clubs and I am so glad you are giving my grandchildren an educational happy hour!” It was time to take it to the next level as Father Time's Educational Happy Hour.
Working with a local non-profit in Detroit, I designed The Read 2 Win Program. It was a literacy program that made reading fun and relevant for elementary school aged children. I used the proceeds from that collaboration to build a more professional puppet show. The Read 2 Win Program was used in the Detroit Public Schools for a number of years. I also took my more professional show on the road. I had the pleasure of performing and facilitating puppetry workshops at Boys and Girls Clubs in metro Detroit, in the Detroit Public School system, many churches, backyards and at the 2008 Michigan State Fair for a four (4) day engagement.
I had performed my final show at the State Fair and the person who gave me this opportunity had not seen it. In fact, she had never seen my performance. She had hired me on someone’s recommendation. As I was breaking down my show I finally saw her and asked if she wanted to see some of the performance. She smiled and nodded her head in the affirmative. I had broken down the curtain that allows me to see the audience while I perform; it’s good for puppet interaction with children. I decided to perform ‘blind'. I performed an educational rap in the blind. After the rap I popped out from behind my stage and saw 6 or 8 high school students who had watched the performance. They stood there in amazement, mouths opened and looking at my resident puppet rapper, A Puppet N Black. The lady who hired me chuckled. I think she knew then she got her money’s worth. These experiences keep me motivated.
I once accompanied my neighbor to a Detroit casino. I don’t gamble but he does so while he wasputting his money in the one armed bandit I go watch sports, people watch and drink as much of the free coffee and soda I can drink. I had just come from the refreshment bar with an ice cold Vernors ginger ale, going to the sports bar to watch some professional baseball when I hear someone shout “If I can read you can read, everybody read. That’s Sesame Street in the hood.” I followed the voice with my eyes and saw a vendor from the east side Detroit Flea Market I performed at about two (2) weeks prior. He was excited to see me as he told his friend “This guy had children dancing and clapping while they rapped the alphabet. It was like having Sesame Street in the neighborhood.” These experiences keep me motivated.