Last week I went to a networking event with my brother, hosted by the Coalition for Responsible Community Development — a nonprofit that's been doing real, unglamorous work in South LA since 2005: workforce development, housing support, small business services, built through a philosophy of coalition-building rather than top-down programs.
What stayed with me wasn't the LA 2028 Olympics-adjacent job opportunities that came up in conversation, real as that is — it was watching an organization built entirely on the premise that lasting change happens with a community, not delivered to one from outside it.
That's the same instinct behind everything I've built across six brands: BCCW exists because Twentynine Palms needed a room, not a franchise. 29 Dines exists because food literacy has to be taught by people who live where they're teaching it. The infrastructure only matters if it serves people who were already there before you showed up.
Good to be back in rooms like that one.