2008: The Oakland Natives’ Give Back Fund

2008: The Oakland Natives’ Give Back Fund would like to thank the sponsors, participants and celebrity guests who made our 1st Annual Back To School Youth Expo 2008 an overwhelming success. We donated 730 bookbags with free school supplies to Oakland students on Sunday, Aug. 24 at OaklandCity Hall as part of the OaklandUnifiedSchool District’s (OUSD) Attend and Achieve campaign. We couldn’t have done it without the hard work and efforts of our partners, OUSD and the City of Oakland. More than 900 people attended Youth Expo 2008, where they enjoyed an afternoon filled with fun activities, gifts and celebrity performances. Youth learned about the importance of education and attending and achieving in school, as well as violence prevention and public safety as part of the city of Oakland’s Measure Y campaign. We wanted to make sure this event was memorable, and we believe we succeeded. A special thanks goes out to non-profit organizations that provided bookbags and support such as the Future Foundation, Usher’s New Look Foundation,The Lost Ones, and the Effective Teachers for Oakland Task Force. We’d also thank the countless efforts of many people who made this event a success, such as event planner Tatiana Larkin and many others.

Our event included motivational speeches by various city and school officials, including Oakland Chief of Staff Leslie Littleton, Director of Education Kitty Epstein, OUSD State Administrator Vincent Matthews and OUSD Interim Superintendent Roberta Mayor. Other notables included speaker Keith L. Brown, who served as the event’s master of ceremonies and entrepreneur Michael Parker, founder of Lifeskills 411. Guests were treated to a variety of entertainment. Celebrity stylist Tameka Raymond produced the Fashion Rocks youth fashion show; spoken word artists Ise Lyfe and Oakland native Jimmy Reign performed; and dance trio Total Package performed. A number of professional athletes and special celebrity guests were on hand to make this event special for youth. Celebrity guests included athletes Sacramento Kings’ Forward Shareef Abdur-Rahim, Boston Celtics’ Leon Powe and San Francisco 49ers’ Allen Rossum. There were also appearances by Oakland natives such as MTV News Host Sway Calloway, Tony! Toni! Tone! recording artist Dwayne Wiggins and his nephew, 13-year-old Ali-Khan Lochin, who served as the DJ.

Our mission was simple: To give back to the city of Oakland, while empowering youth with what we consider to be the building block of success – education. We know that our youth will be prepared to go to school ready to learn thanks to the bookbags they received on Sunday. We look forward to a great school year for Oakland students, and we’re committed to their success this year and beyond.