What a dope idea!
A Memphis businessman purchased a tour bus to transport inner city youth around with the hopes of inspiring them.
Sherman S. Brown is an entrepreneur and author looking to help out the young people in Memphis in a major way. He travels doing motivational speaking and philanthropy work, inviting young people to read his autobiographical novel, The Bullet In Me, with the hopes that they might connect to their own story and see that they too can overcome any obstacle placed in front of them. Now he’s taking his efforts one step further with his new tour bus.
The "Helping Others Obtain Dreams" (H.O.O.D) tour bus was purchased by Brown as a way to connect more with the young people, utilizing the transportation as a way to expose them to things outside of their environment that might motivate and/or inspire them.Â
“The H.O.O.D Tour Bus was born out of the need to take youth from their neighborhoods and expose them to more than what they think the world encompasses with their two to eight blocks that they call home. So many of our kids do not travel out of their neighborhoods for unstated fear of being harassed by the police, feeling not welcomed by the inhabitants, or fearing the unknown and not wanting to be embarrassed by whatever social graces they feel they may lack or be told that they lack in order to be accepted,” Brown told Because Of Them We Can.
A video of Brown sharing the inspiration behind the tour bus started making its rounds on social media last week. The bus is a 54 seater, fully decked out with tinted windows and all the trimmings of a luxury charter bus. Brown can be heard telling the camera man that he “wants the kids to feel like basketball players when they get off the bus because they’re about something and they’re about to do something.”
Brown said his goal is to, “chauffeur youth in style to cultural events in varying neighborhoods to expand their scope past home and social media images that they often try or want to emulate [in an effort] to help close the cultural divide among our youth so that while [some] socioeconomic factors still exist, the hope is increased to do more, be better, dream bigger, and now know resources or have connections to position themselves to be better.”
To date, the video of Brown and his H.O.O.D. tour bus has been viewed over 8,000 times. Ultimately, he just hopes that this tour bus empowers young and old people alike and motivates more people to take responsibility in guiding our young people.
For more information about Sherman Brown and how you can help his cause, visit his website here.Â
The H.O.O.D. tour bus is expected to fully launch in the fall of 2020.Â
Photo Courtesy of shermansbrown.com