Gerald Williams is the co-founder and CEO of Excite All Stars, a mission-driven nonprofit with a mission to help kids become leaders that change the world. A native New Orleanian, Williams was one of three people that integrated Isidore Newman School in 1968 when he was in kindergarten. He received his higher education from Vanderbilt University and Tulane University while playing intercollegiate baseball for both, respectively. Williams is now working every day through Excite All Stars to give New Orleans kids the same exposure he had to the arts, academics and athletics.
Before starting Excite All Stars, Williams worked as an advertising and marketing professional and entrepreneur for more than 25 years. He received his pastoral certification from Emmanuel School of Religion and is an ordained minister. Williams is also certified as a youth sports administrator by The National Alliance for Youth Sports and certified as a high school coach by the Louisiana High School Athletic Association. He has received a Community Impact Award from Zurich Insurance North America, Nike, the US Soccer Foundation and the United States Tennis Association Foundation for the work he is doing with youth.
What is the mission at Excite All Stars?
Our mission is to help shape kids into impactful citizens and leaders in their communities. We started as a direct response to the impact of Hurricane Katrina and recently celebrated our 15-year anniversary in 2022. My wife and I co-founded the organization, and we made a decision to stay in New Orleans and help the city recover. We knew we weren’t going to play the politics game, so we said, “Well, if we can work with the next generation and help shape and bump the trajectory of the next generation, we can help develop some quality citizens that are change agents in their community.”
And that’s really what inspired us to provide these opportunities for kids within our programs.
We focus on the three As — arts, academics and athletics — to carry forth the mission. We have year-round programs in schools during the day, after school enrichment and Saturday programs. Then we run a large summer camp as well.
What are some of the programs that Excite All Stars offers to students?
In the arts, we focus on media arts. The teen program runs “Behold Teen Talk Media.” They do podcasts interviewing local business professionals and mentors. Our kids are learning media arts and performing arts. We also have theater, dance and art therapy programs and culinary arts.
In our academics, STEM is our primary focus. We specialize in youth aviation programs — teaching drone flight and aviation — as well as robotics, coding and artificial intelligence. We want to position kids for these high-paying career opportunities in the future. We do that during the school day and on Saturdays at our Innovation Center. Another academic program that we’re really excited about is our middle school MBA program where kids are learning high-level economics principles and business principles at a young age.
We’ve always been a holistic program. One of the things we learned during Katrina and the recovery was that our kids had so many needs. We didn’t want to lose any kids. So it kind of forced us into this holistic approach, and every kid who came to the doors, whatever the interest might be, they would have an opportunity to land in a place that was important to them. That was the impetus behind that. And it’s just evolved into where now kids can find their passion and jump in, explore, learn, get a mentor and really find their place.
What about your Tennis Academy?
That’s part of our athletics and mentorship program that was started back in 2009. We do tennis at Joe W. Brown Park and in schools — we’re expanding in 2023 to add Dillard University Tennis Center as another site. We partnered with Dillard University because they’re a small NAIA, HBCU school, and their student athletes have the capacity and ability to work even while they’re playing college sports.
We have six tennis coaches from the Dillard University Women’s Tennis Team, and they’re all international students from all over the world. We’re talking Vietnam, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Serbia — these college mentors are working with kids, and we’ve seen a profound impact. The kids are really responding. It’s unbelievable.
These are all kids who would normally not even play tennis. We believe in teaching kids sports that they can play for life. We also choose nontraditional sports for African American kids because we want them to be encouraged to take risks, to try new things — and also, tennis is a great lifelong sport and a great first sport for people to learn.
So we start young with them, and it equips them for whatever sport they want to play. We have a really strong relationship with the United States Tennis Association Foundation (which puts on the U.S. Open). They provide us with professional development training support. We’re in a three-year blueprint for success program. We were one of only six chapters out of 600 nationwide that was selected for this three-year program. So that really helps us to be able to carry that mission forward, along with Laureus US, another national sponsor.
What can these group activities and sports teach a child? What change have you seen in the kids that are involved?
What we’re seeing is leadership skills. When we’re doing our research on what programming is really needed by our kids in the community, some of the 21st century learning research that was done tells that with African American kids and kids in underserved communities, the no. 1 thing that they were lacking was leadership. So we build leadership development and leadership components into just about everything we do.
They’re also learning self-care. The latest research from the Brookings Institution says that the post traumatic stress post-COVID is four-and-a-half times greater than it was for kids after Hurricane Katrina. So we’ve got to provide a place where kids can heal and be the best version of themselves. We make sure that we have self-care, financial literacy and financial health programs.
Our thing is to not necessarily get kids workforce ready, but we’re getting kids life ready. We believe that these business skills and tools and soft skills that they need are life skills, not just business. They translate into discipline, goal setting, setting the right kind of habits, building a team, living in community, etc.
Was there a teacher in your lifetime that made an impact?
I had two or three teachers, but it was coaches as well that had an impact on shaping me as a leader. My middle school basketball coach, who is now the CEO of Laitram, Jay Lapeyre, ran a camp called Jena Day Camp, which I attended as a kid. My experiences through that camp and seeing how they gave back to kids and supported kids and helped them thrive, it really inspired me with that same kind of passion for that. It was inspirational.
What are you most proud of?
We’ve been blessed to serve over 8,500 families thus far through our 15 years and growing now where we’re serving 1,000 to 1,200 kids annually through the different programs that we do.
My wife has been very passionate in driving the mission and vision home with our team and community. One of the things that I’m most proud of is her leadership in how she has helped to cultivate our women leaders and created leadership opportunities for our girls. I think in this climate where many people find themselves voiceless, she’s done an unbelievable job of creating a platform and a pathway for girls to have their voices heard. I think that that has just been monumental.
To learn more about volunteer and employment opportunities with Excite All Stars, or to become a donor, visit exciteallstars.org.
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