(thoughtful music)
My name is Tanisha grant.
I am a proud mother of three,
and I am a education activist in Harlem, New York.
I had a very rough childhood.
I was separated from my family at birth.
I was young girl
who was told that didn't belong anywhere.
And I was in handcuffs by 11.
I was a straight school to prison pipeline child.
I spent my teenage years in group homes.
I was harmed in all kinds of ways in those group homes.
And I didn't know what it was to be loved
until I had my first daughter at 18.
So it's very important to me
to help others,
and to let everybody know
that even though sometimes
we don't have a good beginning
it's what we make it,
and that we can love,
and that we can support each other.
If you empower children,
and you nurture children,
and tell them that they are somebody,
it makes a difference.
So I wanna make sure that my children have it,
and that other children have it.
In 2020, during the height of the pandemic,
I started Parents Supporting Parents New York.
We are a nonprofit grassroots organization.
Our mission is to make sure
that parents thrive,
and not just survive.
It starts with the basic needs,
housing, food, groceries,
and utility bills paid,
whatever our funds allow us to do
to help parents, and families,
and children in our community.
Technology is so important.
So when remote learning started,
it was a struggle.
The Department of Education said that they would make sure
that all of our children had the technology
that they needed to remote learn.
That didn't happen
iPads with no keyboard
or Chromebooks that don't work.
A lot of times,
wifi in my community is a luxury.
And right then that minute we decided
that we was gonna start a GoFundMe
to raise money to buy children laptops,
and it just grew from there.
Since we started,
we have been able to do a laptop giveaway every month since.
We are up to 568 children.
(thoughtful music)
Seeing the ways that this is helping families and children,
it gives me purpose.
It lets me know that I'm here for a reason,
and this is what it's for,
to do as much as I can while I can.
And I believe that we all have a part to play
in making the world that we wanna see for our children.
And so I'm just doing my part.
(inspirational music)
You try and reach out
to your community in multiple ways, right?
On multiple levels.
Right, we also do sensory boxes.
I don't think that, I think that
our children that learn differently,
cuz I don't really like to stay special needs.
I have a five year old autistic nonverbal grandson
who was a beautiful baby, but you know,
we just got him a power this year
and he's been in school, you know two years.
Our children, you know, who learn differently
have all of these technology that will help them
sit and not fidget and concentrate.
And it's called like sensory boxes.
So some schools, you know, have sensory toys
that children are, you know, access that are
accessible to our children,
but they don't have them at home.
So what we do is we identify children,
my OC mom, Gina shout out to Gina.
She calls them, they have a Zoom meeting,
then Gina and the parent go shopping together.
Then we build out the sensory box,
and we deliver it to their house.
This is the type of work that we wanna do,
feeding the community.
So is that, is that the future plan,
just to keep expanding all of the tools that families need?
Yes, we wanna keep expanding,
and we wanna keep bringing awareness
to like children that we don't highlight.
Like there's a lot of us out here
that were underserved as children,
and it has affected us in various,
vast ways during our lives.
And if I can help children, you know,
families, giving these children computers,
that's one less thing for their parents to worry about
Our friends at Gateway,
this is cool.
They're donating $10,000 to your organization
and $3,000 of laptops,
and $3,000 more of laptops.
That's pretty cool.
Thank you!
Oh my God!
Are you serious?
Oh, that is amazing because you know,
we can stretch $10,000,
and more, you know
resources to technology for our community.
Thank you so much Gateway.
Thank you so much, Rachael Ray.