(Nashville, TN) - Archie Davis II, co-founder and CEO of Water Walkers, loves the sense of purpose he feels every day as he works with underserved kids.
Listen to the conversation here:
"Water Walkers is a non-profit 501c3 afterschool and summer enrichment program. We only work with low-income youth as well as support their families. We have five pillars of programs. Our approach is holistic because we do have tutoring in reading and math as well as financial literacy. What we noticed is with getting our kids to the afterschool program, they did not focus well because they were hungry. They needed to have a full belly so they could concentrate. We started a basic needs pillar where we provide food boxes once a week to the families, and we also provide hot meals for the kids that we meet. We meet 5 days a week, 46 weeks a year," Archie explains.
Water Walkers also has a wellness pillar that includes group counseling.
"Our counselors help our kids with trauma that they may have seen. We also have a physical wellness piece where we partner with the Nashville Soccer Club, The Tennessee Titans, The Nashville Predators."
At the center of Water Walkers is outdoor adventure.
"We incentivise education by giving them the opportunity to go on the lake because one hundred percent of our students haven't seen a boat or a large body of water. We take them out and we have professional wakeboarders and wakesurfers that teach them to surf and we also do tubing," Archie explains.
The program encourages a love of nature, including teaching the kids about the ecosystem. Kids learn to swim, tube, wakeboard, water ski and enjoy other year-round activities like fishing, hiking, biking, rock climbing, zip lining and ropes courses.
The experiences allow the youth to build confidence and competencies by facing fears and overcoming challenges.
"Our leadership program is where we hire students at $14 dollars an hour if they're showing leadership skills and we give them soft job skills and they help us run the program in hopes that someday they'll be the CEO."
Lives are being changed as a result of going through Water Walkers.
One child is a second-grader called "Charlie." (Names are changed to protect the children's identity).
Charlie's big sister was in the program and Charlie had always wanted to join.
"We finally got him into the program when he was in first grade and he would not talk at school. I, myself and our program coordinator are on his IEP (Individual Education Plan) because he was having challenges in school, so we tried to strategize as a team (along with his teacher and his mom) to see how we could help him. (Inspite of not talking), he was making A's and B's. What mom noticed is that when he went to Water Walkers, we actually had to tell him, 'now is not the time to talk, we're listening right now' because he was just like a flower opening up and feeling safe in that space.
Fast-forward to now, he's a straight-A student, he has a mentor with Water Walkers, he's learned to surf and he's doing great. He's starting to lead the new first-graders coming in. Charlie is a great example," Archie shares.
Water Walkers is having an incredible impact on underserved youth in greater Nashville and Archie is proud to be a part of the misson.