I am an 18 year old African American male who is determined and challenged to grow personally, as well as intellectually. My personal interests are: fishing, sports, debating, politics, tutoring youth, and conversing with older adults. I am from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and am a product of the public school system. I can be described as intelligent, personable, driven, competitive, creative, curious, and a human being who has a sense of humor and is not arrogant or stuck up. I voted for the first time this year.

   I believe strongly in the notion of giving back, much has been given to me and I plan to help others, especially young African American men who have lost their way.

"A community is often thought of as a physical place. Like the neighborhood in which we live...But in a much broader sense community identifies a shared characteristic, ideology, or condition...Consider this, a people scattered to the four corners of the earth, never having met each other, having one thing in common.Our heritage can be traced back hundreds of years to the continent of Mother Africa. Which makes us all children of the diaspora."                 

(Owens, Fantasia 2004.Personal Communcation October 2004)

Who can not give back to this?