Derby Ball Speaker,
Kweli Reed
My name is Kweli. I am 24 years old, and I was born and raised here in Kokomo, Indiana. I am the middle child of 4 sisters and 2 brothers. I also have 1 stepsister and 1 stepbrother.
I grew up in Gateway Garden square apartments, also known as gateway, here in Kokomo with my mother and my older sister Alexias.
Growing up in Garden square has its pros and cons. It is located beside Kokomo's busiest spots. You could walk to the mall, you could walk to Highland Park, Foster Park. It has a church right beside it where we met Mrs. Susie, a gas station you could walk to. It also has a homework club where we met Ms. Sanders who would help all the kids with homework. And there were plenty of other kids and family to hang out with.
We also had a lot of struggles and cons growing up. Some struggles we had was a single mom, who didn't graduate school or have a GED or a license. Every day she would have to walk to work to make just enough money for bills. She eventually got food stamps but not until we got older. Our dad and his side of the family would try to co-parent and help us as much as he could but my mother and him could never get along, and he also had his own struggles to worry about.
Some of the struggles I faced at school due to our financial situation was wearing the same clothes every week. I also had a hard time making friends in school because when I was younger my ears were too big for my head. I used to be called names like Dumbo and ears. I also had a speech problem. I could never pronounce the letter "S".
I am very grateful for the opportunities that were given to me in my early childhood. Mrs. Susie and the horse ranch was a blessing given to me, with all these struggles Narrow Gate Horse Ranch was almost like a therapy, it was something to keep us out of trouble and gave us kids the chance to do something we may have never dreamed of doing due to these struggles. Urban Outreach had a fun way of doing things and the opportunities it offered to us also made it a lot easier to enjoy and help us all with faith. Every Sunday night they offered a free dinner with real good meals. After dinner on Sunday, they had bible studies with Mrs. Susie upstairs that was just too hard to say no to because I was so grateful for these meals. The bible studies would help us with faith. Over a while, we then started going to a ranch in Cicero for a week in the summers.
When it came to school, that is where the homework club and Ms. Sanders came in, with our mother always working and not finishing school she was never available to help with homework. Garden Square had a homework club community where Ms. Sanders and a few others would help us kids with homework. I loved going to the homework club, that was a place of fun, aside from being outside that was another place we could go to socialize, and it was like the best part of the day….
As we got older Ms. Sanders and Mrs. Susie would work together and that was the
start of the Narrow Gate movement.