About Kid City

Founded in 2008 by the Urban Foundation in the heart of Los Angeles, Kid City Hope Place encourages teens and young adults to find their voice, share their stories, and become self-empowered leaders to overcome systemic barriers in their education and careers. Providing services in college access and success, career prep, music and arts, we bring together the gifts and talents of staff and volunteers to cultivate a supportive and welcoming environment for the youth we serve.

Mission

Kid City’s mission is to unleash the innate potential of young people in South and Central Los Angeles through holistic youth development programs that cultivate self-empowered leaders and build a community committed to equitable college and career success.

Kid City Values

At Kid City, we foster:

  • Community keeps us grounded. While we act with consideration of each other, we respond to collective needs. Communal awareness endows every Kid City Member with unique leadership that puts unity first.

  • Kid City warmly and unapologetically welcomes everyone, especially folks too-often disenfranchised. We aim to create a safe space where vulnerability is possible.

  • Kid City reiterates to youth that they have the agency to choose our direction. With consistent acknowledgement and reassurance, we empower youth to become highly engaged in affairs critical to their wellbeing.

  • Creativity guides us in our healing and growth. Through music we nurture an appreciation for art so that it can be a medium for finding beauty and joy.

  • Every person is bestowed with cultural wealth that grants them incomparable knowledge and skills. We choose to view individuals through the assets collected by their lived experiences.

  • Knowledge is at the core equity. With intellectual curiosity, we learn to question the world around us and develop critical consciousness. We aim to find opportunities for reflection that nurture the desire to gain more wisdom. Kid City is a place to learn without fear, resulting in confident and intuitive people.

  • Kid City is accountable to racial, gender, and sexual equity & inclusion in all spaces. We include underrepresented voices in decision-making. Kid City Strives to more accurately reflect the communities we serve and to operate with insights otherwise missed.

In the fall of 2008, Kid City started when five kids from First United Methodist Church of Los Angeles -- Kwesi, Kofi, Kobe, and Queen Essilfie and their friend, Kenny Tilmon, asked Pastor Sandie Richards for an after-school program.

Those kids brought in friends from Hope Village, and staff at that time like Ben Ede and Jessie Moore provided snacks, helped with homework, and created a lighthearted, welcoming environment that gave birth to BAUD!, the first Kid City band. Many years later, that scrappy little afterschool program has become a cherished and highly regarded college access & completion, music and leadership program. Why music and college?

How It All Started

Higher education is a key predictor for families to achieve economic stability, yet the road to college has multiple financial and institutional barriers. And music is integral to Kid City — the joy of learning a beat or a chord easily translates to the joy of learning anything.

Kid City challenges educational inequity and economic hardships in our communities by providing students ways to access opportunities to explore their intellectual curiosity and creative joy, and discover their ability to advocate for themselves and lead their communities.