What good allyship in Minnesota looks like

Jadin Archie suffered the same challenges many of his high school peers faced after the pandemic. He’d wrestled with mental health issues and had not yet scripted his post-graduation vision — beyond continuing to feed his love of baseball.

But through his participation last month in the Co-Lab mentorship program, a pilot project that aims to inspire young Black adults, Archie developed a different outlook on his life and future — which now includes college, he said.

“My first year [in college], I would do generals. And my minor would be creative writing or journalism. And then my major would be business,” Archie told me. “All that together is very strong. And I’ve only learned all those qualities from [Co-Lab].”

I recently visited with Archie, 20, and others at the Co-Lab in the Junior Achievement offices in St. Paul. There, a group of young Black people — ages 18 to 24 — listened intently as representatives from a medical tech firm described their vocations. Brad von Bank, one of the catalysts of the program, says the goal is to not only spark participants’ imaginations but also to connect them with professional opportunities.

Through the four-week program, they received a stipend of $25 per hour and gained valuable exposure to corporate and blue-collar professionals, who offered real-world perspectives about their career paths.

“Well, I’m a proud Minnesotan,” said von Bank, co-founder of Reve Consulting. “We have a lot going for us. But this is unacceptable, right? The persistent equity gap that we’ve had. There are really no excuses. We have incredible organizations, incredible people. And so I think we need to solve it and we need to solve it through action. And there is no silver bullet, right? It’s a myriad of things.”

Allyship is not a complicated endeavor. It simply demands that those with privilege, resources and economic advantages employ those tools to enhance the lives of folks within marginalized communities who lack those components.

The Co-Lab offers a tangible representation of this community’s ability to fight for equity. The students involved in the program, backed by more than two dozen organizations and businesses, were granted a safe space in the Junior Achievement office to learn new skills and consider new careers with the help of professionals. The goal? Plant the seed of optimism while also offering a financial incentive for the participants. But that was not the project’s most compelling feature.

Along with career advice and support, participants also received a YMCA membership and mental health resources. And they developed relationships and created community with one another.

Ann Anderson, a recent high school graduate, said she and her Co-Lab peers now have a group chat and connect with one another outside the Junior Achievement offices.

“There is so much happening in our society that is stopping a lot of BIPOC individuals from succeeding,” she said. “And there is not really a light shined on it as a lot of people say there is.”

Anderson cited a lack of transportation, traumatic experiences and mental health issues that have impacted some of the BIPOC folks she knows who are searching for jobs and careers after high school.

I believe the Co-Lab is not only a promising concept, I think it’s an essential idea that our community stakeholders — business owners, organizers, politicians and educators — should support.

“There were a lot of people in power — adults — who were building things for youth and the youth weren’t engaging,” said Heidi Johnson, senior vice president and chief of staff with ECMC Group in Minneapolis, which sponsors Co-Lab. “The people who built the programs were frustrated. The youth were frustrated. … And so we started with the youth and asked them very simply, ‘How was the education workforce ecosystem working for you? How does it make you feel? What would you improve? What would you scale up?’”

Archie was also searching for answers after high school while grappling with the unknowns attached to his future.

During the Co-Lab pilot program, he would use his free YMCA membership and encourage others to join him there. He still dreams of playing baseball at collegiate and professional levels someday, but he also enjoys serving as a youth baseball coach in the Twin Cities.

When I met him, I only saw a young man who, through the Co-Lab program, had been given the only gift that moves any human being from hope to action: a belief that the future can be bright.

“Now, I have a growth mindset, meaning I feel like I can build more onto what comes next or say, “Hey, I’m excited for what’s next’ or, even if I don’t know how to do this, I’m going to still try to do it, learn new things, achieve new things, and be better and greater,” he said. “This program definitely made me more confident.”