By Jannette J. Witmyer
Special to the AFRO
Knicole Mosby-Taylor, founding and executive director of Empowering Minds of Maryland’s Youth (EMMY), planted the seeds of her mission to uplift Baltimore’s young people in 2003. At the time, she was organizing an informal mentoring program for nine young girls in the living room of her home. In 2009, EMMY officially became a 501(c)(3) organization, providing outreach programs for youth, mentorship programs, anti-bullying conferences, historically Black college and university (HBCU) tours, after school programs and a variety of other services.
Mosby-Taylor traces her passion for community service back to experiences as a child volunteering at church and organizations like Our Daily Bread, alongside her late mother and role model, Eunice Orange. She says that she began as most kids do: she did as she was told. But, after a while, she found that really enjoyed it.
She attributes her interest in working with youth to another childhood experience: being bullied in middle school. She describes it as “relational aggression.”
“I always felt like I was an outsider and that really affected me,” said Mosby-Taylor. “Then, God just put something in my heart when I went to high school. I was able to not only stand up to the bullies for myself, but I also was able to stand up to them for other people.”
Mosby-Taylor, who earned a bachelor’s degree in social work, says EMMY has worked to address a variety of issues faced by young people, far beyond bullying.
“We started doing our anti-bullying campaign, where we hosted a one-day conference centered on anti-bullying,” Mosby-Taylor shared. “From there, we turned to dating and domestic violence and interpersonal relationships. We did a leadership symposium as well.”
“Right now, we’re in the process of planning our first annual cotillion on April 13. With the cotillion, we’re teaching the girls etiquette, poise, how to love themselves, how to truly love themselves, how to give back to others and things of that sort,” said Mosby-Taylor.
EMMY stresses the importance of role models and mentors to empower its girls, and in January 2023, the group traveled to Atlanta and participated in Marjorie Harvey’s Girls Who Rule the World Mentoring Program. Locally, in partnership with Inspiring Change Mental Health Services, EMMY created a retreat filled with activities ranging from archery to making prom dresses out of newspaper and holding workshops on self-esteem. The retreat ended with an affirmation and an open-flame ceremony, which allowed the girls to symbolically throw unwanted behaviors into the fire, leaving them behind.
Mosby-Taylor takes great pride in the organization’s Annual Foster Care Drop-off Suitcase Drive, now in its third year, and how it allows EMMY to uplift youth in a sorely underserved community.
“Foster-care youth go from home to home with trash bags. So, we wanted to bless them with a brand new suitcase that they can carry to make their travel and their transition just a little easier,” she explained.
She is especially appreciative of the support that the Steve and Marjorie Harvey Foundation has provided for the past two years by partnering with EMMY for the drive and supporting its mission. The brainchild of EMMY board member Lorraine Hanson, the drive honors the memory of her mom, Delores Hanson, and aunt, Ella Mae Ford.
For Mosby-Taylor, it’s extremely important for the girls to see that they can succeed, and they’ve seen it firsthand when meeting and working with past EMMY participants like Cynthia Johnson, now a cosmetics engineer with her own company, Cindy J Labs.
“Basically, we have been able to live up to our name by just empowering our youth, whatever that looks like, partnering with other organizations or doing it ourselves,” she said.
Mosby-Taylor wants their empowerment to translate into success.
“The impact that I want to make on these young ladies is an everlasting opportunity to change some of their trajectories. To help them to be able to dream and realize that those dreams are nothing, if they don’t follow through,” she said. “We want to help them to be able to establish SMART goals, and we’re working to help them learn how to do that.”
To learn more about EMMY and its programs, visit their website at https://www.empoweringyouthusa.net/.
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