Meet this year’s class of Achievers, a group of exceptional young Black men honored for ‘doing the right thing’

In a city beset by gun violence, with too few opportunities for young people, the Achievers stand out.

They are 23 young Black men, recent high school graduates, college-bound, and recognized by a local nonprofit for “doing the right thing,” even when it was tough. Especially when it was tough.

Mister Mann Frisby, the Philly writer and event planner, dreamed up the Achievers Brunch in 2019: What if he gathered outstanding students from around the city, young Black men about to launch their college journey. The plan was to bring them together for a meal, fundraise for small scholarships, and share advice about the things he needed to hear when he was a bright student heading from Overbrook High to Penn State in the ‘90s.

Frisby put the event together in a month — food, speakers, gift bags with dorm essentials, and modest scholarship checks for 50 determined graduates, kids with solid grades and extracurricular activities.

The first brunch was so memorable and meaningful that Frisby knew he had to repeat it for years to come. He started a nonprofit and spread the word. This year’s event, held during the spring, was the fourth annual Achievers Brunch (with the exception of 2020). There was a panel dispensing advice — about consent, about how to be a good roommate, about the experience of coping with racism in the South for the students headed there for college.

“This is the event that I needed before I went to college,” said Frisby.

The seeds he’s planted have already begun to bear fruit: The first Achievers are helping the new ones, networks are being formed. Frisby, a former Daily News reporter, thinks a lot about his own formative years and about the path his own mentor, Joseph P. Blake, helped him find.

“This well-known journalist snatched me up out of Richard Allen projects and said, ‘You are going to be a journalist,’” Frisby said. “I want to be for these men what Joe Blake was for me.”

This year’s group, from schools around the city, are standouts headed to colleges including Howard University and Community College of Philadelphia.

Here are some of their stories. (A full list of this year’s Achievers is at the bottom of this article.)

Just 50% of kids involved in foster care will finish high school.

But Jewell Gadson, who was in and out of the foster care system since he was a year old, graduated from Martin Luther King High School in June, and is already living on Morgan State University’s college campus with plans to earn a nursing degree.

Getting to college was quite a journey. Gadson’s mother and father had their parental rights terminated when he was in middle school, and things remained tough for him into his teens. Adults he could count on were in short supply, Gadson said.

“Growing up with no mom, no dad, I had a lot of difficulties, and it was hard to make decisions,” he said. “But I chose to go to college because I want to be successful in life. I want to do better. I don’t want to see myself working at McDonald’s for the rest of my life, or selling drugs. My goal was to dream big and chase the dream.”

Gadson is smart and determined, but he was floundering for a time. He had to change schools; he worked a lot, and his grades didn’t match his potential.

Eventually, he came to live with Karlynne Staten, a King emotional support case manager; Gadson worked with her son, Amir, at McDonald’s, and Staten was impressed with the polite young man who always offered to carry her groceries if he saw her struggling with heavy bags, or asked her whether she needed help if she was working in the family’s Germantown yard.

“When I learned his story, I thought, ‘How the hell is he walking around with this smile when he has all this going on?’” Staten said.

Having support made a big difference for Gadson, but the potential was always in him. After moving in with Staten, Gadson got his grades up and began making plans for college.

He’s taking three classes at Morgan State this summer, still navigating speed bumps. Gadson’s fall housing and financial aid aren’t locked down yet, and details as fundamental as how he’ll get back to Philadelphia — where he tries to keep his 14 siblings in contact — are also up in the air.

But Gadson is an Achiever. He’ll figure it out.

“There were a bunch of times I felt like giving up,” Gadson said, “but I just kept looking forward, I couldn’t look back.”

Pennsylvania State University feels as if it’s a world away from where Christopher Jones grew up in Germantown.

But Jones is ready for University Park, where he’ll run track and attack his classes with the same kind of determination that made him a standout at Mastery Charter High School-Pickett Campus, where he earned stellar grades and was active in extracurricular activities.

In a room full of standouts, Jones is a standout, Frisby said: a connector, a spokesperson, someone who makes everyone feel at ease.

“I like to tell people all the time, ‘Adversity is what builds me,’” said Jones. “I don’t let it get the best of me.”

Jones, too, spent time in the foster care system; he was adopted in 2016 by a family member who “pushed me to be the best I could be,” he said. “That made me stronger.”

The strength comes in handy. In addition to his academics, sports, and clubs, he also worked as a building engineer apprentice at Mastery Pickett, starting work at 6 a.m. every day and working after school until track practice began. He’s keeping that job over the summer; it’s good to keep busy, Jones said.

Jones will major in kinesiology and is mulling a career in physical therapy or sports training. He’s one of eight children, and so far his parents haven’t had to pay for college for any of their kids — all have earned scholarships.

Jones is proud to uphold that tradition, and though he’s looking forward to living outside of Philadelphia, the city won’t be far from his mind, he said.

“I do all of this for my family, and I’m pulling for the city,” said Jones. “Sometimes people might think Philly is the gutter, but it’s a beautiful city.”

And the recognition he earned from being an Achiever?

“It’s like being stuck under water and coming up for air,” said Jones. “You worked so hard to get up here, and you’re finally here.”

Amir Staten has had a remarkable few months.

First, he went viral for the video his mother recorded of the moment he learned about his acceptance to Morehouse College — people around the world couldn’t get enough of Staten’s unmitigated joy. Then, he earned a full ride to Morehouse, the celebrated all-male historically Black college.

Then, he became an Achiever.

But Karlynne Staten, Amir’s mother (who also took in Gadson) isn’t surprised. He’s just that kind of kid.

When Staten was a young boy, he walked himself to church, even when his mother didn’t attend, because he thought that it was the right thing to do. He always got good grades, but he made time to be a regular kid, hanging out with his friends, playing basketball, roller skating.

Karlynne is a single mom of twins — Amir and his sister, Angel — and though he had a strong support network of family and friends, he was always conscious of the burden on his mother’s shoulders. He wanted to do well not just for himself, but for his family.

Growing up in a city where gun violence is everyone’s reality made achieving more urgent, said Staten. Her godson, Nasir Roberson, was shot and killed in Port Richmond in 2021.

Gun violence “was always in my mind, and always something my mom feared, as well,” Staten said. “Even something as simple as walking home from school, she worried.”

“The death of my godbrother put a spark in me, an extra gear to do better,” he said. “I know that’s what he would want me to do, and he didn’t make it as far as I did.”

Staten will major in sociology and wants to use his degree to help others, perhaps start a nonprofit to do good work in a place where people need it. He’s “more excited than nervous” about moving to Atlanta, but Philly won’t be far from his heart, he said.

“There’s more stories like mine; I’m not the only one,” Staten said. “There’s more good in this city than people know.”