Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Esther Lewis. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Esther, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?
My heart for this work stems from my own experience raising a black boy in Indiana as a single black female. I can remember when my passion ignited for education advocacy. My son was in the 3rd grade when I filed my first discrimination complaint with the Department of Education. My son went to a predominantly white elementary school and I was concerned with the amount of time he was spending outside of the classroom for minor offenses that could be handled with appropriate classroom management. I advocated that education was one of our inalienable rights and that him consistently being ejected from the classroom and missing crucial instruction time, was infringing upon his rights to be educated. According to Bernadette Sanchez, PHD DePaul University, Black boys like my son “face over-referral for school disciplinary action and special education”. As a single mother going through this at the time I knew I was frustrated but I couldn’t put into words where the frustration stemmed from. It wasn’t until I started doing the research that I was able to understand and properly advocate for my sons’ education.
It was this experience that sparked my interest in education policy reform, but not just education, I began to evaluate all of the systems and how they did or would affect the black son that I was raising. “In the criminal Justice system black children are 18 times more likely than white children to be sentenced as adults. Black boys are viewed as older, less innocent, and less human than white boys. Police officers dehumanizing views of black boys were significantly related to their use of force on black suspects. These findings speak directly to the view that black boys are not allowed to be children at all in our society.” Sanchez,B,(2016) While my son has had no interaction with the criminal justice system, our culture has lost so many SONS to this system. I have spent the last 15 years working and advocating for black boys and men within the criminal justice, education, as well as the Health systems. My passion for men of color stems from the love I have for my own son.
When my son was in elementary school I started to notice how many of my sons friends did not have a mother or an adult advocating for them, which in many cases was a signal for me to get involved and advocate for them. It wasn’t until later that I figured out how I could be most impactful with the evolution of young men of color.
It is my thought that young men of color, being raised in a single parent home have little to no interaction with men. If they are anything like my son, the only men that were consistent in his life was his white male teachers, who were not always nice to him. They had an unsaid distain for him that kept him bumping heads with them. There was a time when my son was about 14, that he said “he hated men and he doesn’t understand why they have to talk to him”. This was very alarming to me, but it also taught me a lesson. My son had not been socialized to interact with men because he was not around any on a consistent enough bases. I reacted by finding black men in the community rather formal or informal that would take time to invest in my son and it worked! I believe my son is a well-adjusted young man that is no longer scared or hesitant to speak to men.
This is why I believe mentoring is a crucial element to the evolution of young men. In our society we have older men that have made all the mistakes within their education, the criminal justice system, even health related decisions and I believe that if we could just get those older men connected to our younger men our younger men will learn the same lessons accept sooner or at an earlier age, thereby causing a holistic evolution of black boys and men. This is where Holistic Evolution Inc. came from.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
The road to health equity is far from over but we made great strides in 2023. From bringing prevention education to Northwest Indiana, being published with one academic partner, facilitating barbershop talks, and promoting good health behaviors, we have been busy doing the good work of addressing disparities that exist in most communities of color. In addition to external activities, we have spent a great deal of time focused on internal development. H.E. has undergone comprehensive technical assistance to enhance our operational efficiency, strategic planning, and overall effectiveness. In addition to enhancing our organizational capacity, our team members have engaged in rigorous prevention science training to better serve our target population – young men of color age 16-24. This training not only enhances our ability to support and uplift this demographic but also underscores our commitment to providing the highest quality of care and assistance. Your investment and partnership has empowered us to better fulfill our mission and vision and respond to the evolving needs of our community.
As the CEO of Holistic Evolution, I am delighted to present this report, not as a mere collection of statistics and figures, but as a testament to the profound impact we have collectively made on the lives of individuals within our community. Your support, feedback, and partnership have been integral to our success. Thank you for being an essential part of our journey. We look forward to continuing this collaborative effort and making an even greater impact in the coming years.
With Gratitude,
Esther J. Lewis
Holistic Evolution (H.E.) emerged in October of 2019 in Northwest Indiana under the visionary leadership of Esther J. Lewis. Esther’s inspiration for founding H.E. stemmed from her personal journey raising a black son as a single black woman in Indiana. Drawing upon over 20 years of experience in youth development, Esther identified a need for systemic support that would positively impact her son and others like him, leading to the inception of Holistic Evolution.
As a membership organization, H.E. supports its member entities capacity to serve young men of color 16-24 yr old living in Northwest Indiana. Esther’s commitment to this cause was evident from the beginning, as demonstrated by her initiative to host a fundraising event for her 40th birthday. Through this event, she raised nearly $9,000 in support of male mentoring initiatives in NWI.
Recognizing the pivotal role of mentorship in the growth of young men, Esther awarded most outstanding male mentor during the fundraising event. Esther firmly believes that connecting them with older individuals who have navigated similar challenges is crucial. By leveraging the wisdom gained from life experiences, Esther envisions a holistic evolution of young men of color.
With a deep understanding of community needs gained from several years of engagement with service organizations across Indiana, Esther founded Holistic Evolution to complement existing efforts. H.E. works alongside member organizations to build capacity of the organizations who serve young men of color 16-24.
In 2022, H.E. partnered with 21 organizations, and impacted over 388 men of color through some of our community events. These include the Barbershop Health Series, Mentor Mondays, H.E. Health Weekend, H.E. Future Fair Simulation and H.E. Annual Fundraiser, where Esther recognized two mentors for most outstanding and most impactful male mentor of the year.
Holistic Evolution is a member organization and we support our member entities capacity to serve young men of color 16-24 yrs old living in northwest Indiana through the research informed HE Model: Life Coaching, Male Mentoring, Resource Connection, and strength-focused reward system.
Our Mission is To encourage the evolution of young men of color 16-24 through supporting mentoring, health equity and other prevention efforts in Northwest Indiana; providing resources to remove unforeseen barriers to the evolution of males of color.
Our Vision is to Eliminated Youth Violence in Northwest Indiana
Holistic Evolution Member Organizations provide direct service to young men of color, aligned with H.E.’s four program areas: life coaching, male mentoring, resource connection, and strengths-focused rewards system. Capacity issues can prevent grassroots community organizations from adopting Evidence Based and/or Promising Practices. The organizations best positioned to address the issues of substance misuse, suicide, risky sexual behavior, and community violence are trusted grassroots organizations and members of the community. These organizations can face challenges researching, administering, implementing assessments, and continuously improving programs. Holistic Evolution resolves this through providing member organizations a holistic range of services and incentives that increase adoption and implementation of Evidence Based and/or Promising Practice. Member organizations receive funding, administrative support, training, recruitment, screening, assessments, and opportunities for collaborations. These wraparound services to member organizations ensures their successful implementation, but also sustaining effective strategies that will reduce all forms of negative health behaviors of young men of color in Northwest Indiana for many years to come.
In 2023, Holistic Evolution had one Community Member Organization and one Hero Member Organization. Our Community member organizations provide a $2,500/annual contribution to the mission and vision of Holistic Evolution and commits to providing the life coaching or the resource connection component of the H.E. model. In 2023, H.E. paid an average of $1,223.18 per month to our Community Member Organization to provide the resource connection component of the H.E. Model. Our Hero Member organization provides a $5,000/annual contribution to the mission and vision of Holistic Evolution and commits to providing the evidence based/promising practice mentoring component of the H.E. model. In 2023, H.E. paid an average of $2,324.83 per month to our Hero Member Organization to provide evidence based mentoring to young men of color 16-24 in Northwest Indiana.
Has your business ever had a near-death moment? Would you mind sharing the story?
As a nonprofit it is extremely important to have multiple streams of revenue. This is something I knew coming into this but capacity to secure these streams of revenue is something that I was not prepared for. I am a grant writer and secured multimillion dollar grants for other organizations and I cam into this with the understanding that I would do this for Holistic Evolution as well(nonprofit I found and lead). I wrote and secured over $500,000 in grant funds within a two year span of time. I additionally, developed a number of services that we could provide to receive payment via, membership, sponsorship, and fee for service. While I developed materials that could be shared, I did not take into account the capacity of our team to complete the task that had been laid out. This has caused me to have to be involved in every aspect in which I do not have the capacity to do. Our bookkeeper submitted claims with mistakes that held up grant reimbursement of funds that would support our pay and operational expenses. It required me to go without pay for 3 weeks until grant funding came in.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
I started early on building a social media presence, as males of color is consistently projected in a negative light. I invested in a social media manager before I started giving myself a salary.The social media manager completed 3 post a week on the Holistic Evolution page to build our audience. We integrated this strategy into our prevention programming as an environmental campaign, better known as a social messaging campaign to combat negative imagery concerning males of color.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.holisticevolution.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/holisticevolutioninc/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/holisticevolutioninc
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/74723393
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@holisticevolutioninc3550?si=6XXP6zT3S6QRoc7D
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@holisticevolutionnwi?_t=8hisgyZYvk2&_r=1 https://t.snapchat.com/vw44DJBU
Image Credits
These photos were taken by Paul Hairlson but I have the ability to use them as they belong to me.