JAMON BROWN FOUNDATION EMPOWERMENT CENTER

The Jamon Brown Foundation Empowerment Center is a response to the overwhelming gun violence and violent crime to the youth in the city of Louisville. Youth in the city’s most underserved/vulnerable populations do not have a safe place to hang out after school; so they are hanging out on the streets with no jobs and nothing to do - a recipe for boredom, bad role models, poor decisions and sometimes even death. The Empowerment Center is designed to be a key strategy in decreasing the violence in the city.

The Empowerment Center’s mission is building a community where families can live, grow, and thrive through sports, learning, and creating lifelong relationships for a stronger future. The Empowerment Center will provide a “Safe Space” that offers educational employment to youth and adults in the area, an evolving state of the art recreational arena, education center with access/exposure to state-of-the-art equipment and technology in a fun, attractive environment. A long-term goal is to provide affordable housing for professionals and working adults.

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Empowerment Center components include:

Education/Training center, roller skating rink, multi-purpose arena, marketplace, meeting space center, birthday, special event, and retail space; and affordable housing.

The Empowerment Center will be located in one of Louisville’s most dangerous neighborhoods, according to this article at https://www.areavibes.com/louisville-ky/most-dangerous-neighborhoods/ these are the most dangerous neighborhoods in Louisville for 2021: Hallmark, Shawnee, Jacobs, Park Duvalle, Limerick, Iroquois, Wyandotte, Iroquois Park, Clifton and Beechmont. The rankings are calculated based on the number of violent crimes per 100,000 people for each neighborhood, compared to the Louisville violent crime average. The goal of the Empowerment Center is to avert crime and provide activities and programs in a safe place for citizens to engage in.

The property for The Empowerment Center will be purchased with funds from partners, sponsorships, local and federal grants, and public/private donors.

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We are hoping that the city of Louisville will support our mission/vision and donate city property to the Jamon Brown Foundation for the Empowerment Center. Although hanging out with friends at the Empowerment Center will be free, some of the activities and education classes will be at an affordable fee; therefore the operations will be self-sustaining from skating admission, rink rental, arcade, cafe, birthday, special event, meeting and retail rental space, public/private donors, affordable housing, and local and federal grants.

The Empowerment Center hopes to have its Grand Opening in the Summer of 2023.

With the momentum that we have gained in the community and the commitment from four operating partners that are already successful in their current programs. The Empowerment Center will be a hub for our partners to come together in one space and deliver their programs, such as, sports camps, life skills, arts, financial literacy, and job and workforce development.

It takes a village!