about melvin

Assuming that most of you didn’t click this tab to read a full-fledged bio—rather to figure out whether you want to connect—let me start with the short of it: I am a devoted husband, committed father, learner, teacher, writer, storyteller, lover of people, connoisseur of creativity, purveyor of sustainability and believer in possibilities.

The challenge is to find ways to make such ‘noble’ intuitions pay the bills (if I weren’t married with kids I’d probably be homeless ). As my muse, Brudda Langston Hughes, once put it, “An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what he might choose.”

Thus, I choose to be a social entrepreneur. The way that looks right now:

• I am an itinerant speaker and aspiring author. As such, I work to tell more beautiful stories of sustainable ways of being in the world and contributed a prayer of hope to the 2009 release The Audacity of Faith (seen to your right). I am a contributing editor for Sojourners magazine, and I periodically post to God’s Politics blog. Additionally, I am happy to report I am making good progress with The Stories in Which We Find Ourselves: A Bible Story Project.
• I am founder, director, chief gardener of Kid Cultivators, a missional youth development nonprofit.
• I help others tell their own story. Much more than writing for hire and manuscript editing, it’s helping people find their own voice and say well what’s inside of them to say. In the same vein, I love making the printed word audible (as evidenced by the audio page of this and other sites). So I do voice-over as well.
• I occasionally consult in the areas of nonprofit organization, program development and curriculum development, which includes all the document preparation associated with each.
• I am a host of the annual Wild Goose Festival and a participant in the Emergent Village theological conversation and the Children, Youth and a New Kind of Christianity conversation (begun in spring 2012).

For the more curious—or those who just have time to kill—the more narrative/descriptive version goes…

Though social entrepreneur may be the more normative descriptor for what I do, up to this point my favorite description of my work is that I grow kids. On a personal level that involves partnering with my bride of 16 years (June 30), Leslie, as we pour ourselves into our three wonderful children—Jaya, Kari & Melvin IV.

On my most enjoyable professional days, growing kids takes the form of some Kid Cultivators project. Kid Cultivators is the nonprofit I founded in the late 90′s and have worked through for the last 13 years to help youth, youth-workers and their families learn habits of sustainability. We teach them to apply the ethics of sustainability to the way they engage ecology, faith, relationships, education, economics, politics, media and art. We currently support home-schooling families in the Atlanta area and facilitate gardening and discovery learning projects throughout the region.

Over the years I have also served as a school principal, program director, classroom teacher, camp director/counselor, curriculum developer, consultant, trainer and general contractor. Prior to founding Kid Cultivators, I even did a short stint on a local television homework enrichment program, for which I was awarded an Emmy™. I also stay active chasing untamed water fowl (Wild Goose Festival), growing generative friendship (Emergent Village) and seeking to re-imagine youth faith development (The Stories in Which We Find Ourselves: A Bible Story Project and Children, Youth and a New Kind of Christianity). Outside of that, I’m just trying to remain diligent with my arts—writing, teaching and friendship.

My family returned to Atlanta fall 2010 from our two year assignment back at my high school alma mater in the southeast foothills of Pennsylvania. Now “we shall see what becomes of this dreamer and his dreams.”

I hope we can connect.