Project STORY celebrates five years supporting local youth

For Lawi Kahurwa, it all started with a ride to basketball practice.

He was in eighth grade and didn’t always have a way to get to and from the gym. His friends recommended he ask Charm. He didn’t know who that was.

Five years later, Kahurwa is studying business and finance at Colby Sawyer College and sprinting on their track and field team. He thanks Charm Emiko and her organization, Project STORY, for helping him get there.

Kahurwa’s years in Project STORY brought him to his first book club, solidified his career path and helped him found his own basketball team.

“Anytime I think about doing something good, or think about helping others, the first person that always comes to my mind is Charm,” said Kahurwa, who is finishing his freshman year in college. “Because she has truly helped me, and I’ll forever be grateful for that.”

Project STORY, or Supporting Talents of Rising Youth, began as a simple idea to help the families of refugees and immigrants sign up for youth soccer teams in the city. Within a few months, the organization was offering support and its own programming for a few dozen kids. Five years later, it has grown into a nonprofit organization that serves 130 young people, aged six to 21, from culturally diverse backgrounds in Concord.

“I never thought that it would grow to this extent in such a short amount of time, but it really illustrates the need that was in our community,” Emiko said. “If you show kids a little bit of leadership and support and resources and guidance, they can just thrive, and they will show us what the future will look like.”

Members of the group danced, sang, played instruments and told jokes in an annual talent show Wednesday night to celebrate the organization’s fifth birthday. Mashi Wazir took first place.

Project STORY encompasses a range of programming, and not every member participates in the same way.

It provides transportation to sports practices or school events when kids don’t have other options. It offers an afterschool program and summer camp, creating space for kids to play, create, learn and study after hours or on breaks when they might otherwise be on their own, bringing them on hikes and field trips. It sponsors classes in dance and arts and crafts. It launches them into young adulthood with leadership training and career workshops, where professionals from the community talk about their jobs. It teaches young learners how to advocate for themselves in difficult or discriminatory situations. It has crowdsourced warm jackets in the winter, bathing suits in the summer and school supplies in the fall. It partners with local organizations like the Community Action Program to ensure hungry families are fed. It helps with college visits and scholarship applications.

Concord, from its schools to its state agencies, has official resources and support for people who are low-income, don’t speak English fluently or are used to a different culture, Emiko said. But gaps exist – and that’s where Project STORY comes in.

“A lot of our kids refer to Project STORY as kind of like a family. And I would say that’s totally true,” she said. The birthday celebration was a moment “to realize that we’re all just better off if we all come together and work together.”

Emiko started the organization because her son’s best friend, Boris, was having trouble getting signed up for youth soccer in elementary school. Emiko figured that, because of his prodigious skills, of course, Boris would be in the league.

It was her son, Taro, who explained.

“Well, no, Mom, because his mom doesn’t speak the language, she doesn’t know how to sign him up,” Emiko recalled him saying. “She can’t afford the $55 to pay, and she doesn’t know that there are scholarships or how to get that. She doesn’t have the money to buy him equipment. She doesn’t have the car to drive him to his games and practices.”

Emiko said she hadn’t realized how many barriers kids like Boris faced. But she also knew she could help.

“We decided that, this is easy: We can all just work together and sign this kid up for soccer, and that’s exactly what we did,” she said.

As family friends, she helped Boris’ older brothers get accepted into four-year colleges in New Hampshire, including submitting scholarship and financial aid applications.

What became Project STORY snowballed from there.

For Kahurwa, career support helped him realize he wanted to go into finance or accounting. But the group supported his visions while he was still in Concord schools, too.

When he was in high school, Kahurwa started Project Dreams, an AAU basketball team for kids who couldn’t afford the normal hundreds or thousands in team and tournament fees. This year, he served as a coach.

When he got the idea for the program, he said Emiko helped him figure out how to make it happen.

“She’s always like, ‘That’s a great idea. Here’s how we can go about it,’” he said. “She’s always there to support me and support anyone who’s willing to make change in the community.”

To Emiko, this initiative is what Project STORY is all about.

“It was never just me, and it was never about just me, and it never will be. It’s always been about the community of kids,” she said. “They are running it. They are developing everything.”

As it grew, the organization was resource-limited. Without a home base, running summer camp out of Keach Park meant they couldn’t operate in “rain or shine.” Emiko and other volunteers still give rides from personal vehicles, and seating is sometimes limited. Because the organization was not registered as a non-profit until earlier this year, they weren’t able to access grants and other funding or cost exemptions.

That’s been changing, though. Last year, the Capital Center for the Arts gave Project STORY space in its upper-floor offices to use as a home base.

The organization’s 501(c)(3) designation was finalized in January. Emiko is confident it will help open doors to expansion.

With access to greater funding and fundraising systems, Emiko hopes to bring on staff and expand, someday, into their own facility.

“We’d love to have multiple program directors, an advocacy coordinator, a family liaison,” she said. “And I would love for the majority of them to be past kids that were in the program.”