Two nonprofits serving youth — one a track and field club, the other a program to introduce young people to professional trades — are the recipients of the city of Ypsilanti’s 2025 Youth Mini-Grants. In March, the city announced an award of $4,000 to the All About Speed Track Club and a $5,000 grant to the Trades Program for Youth and Adults.
The city’s youth mini-grant program started with an application round in 2015. Its first awards were given in 2016. This year, city council members Desirae Simmons, Me’chelle King, and Roland Tooson served on a standing committee to evaluate half a dozen grant applications.
Simmons says the committee considered whether the groups had applied in the past and, if they had, how long ago. Committee members also wanted to ensure the grant money would serve residents of Ypsilanti and make a difference for the recipients.
Doug CoombeYpsilanti city council member Desirae Simmons.
“We thought about how much of an impact $5,000 would make for what they’re trying to do,” Simmons says.
She notes that both recipient organizations have been “doing the work out of their own pockets,” so even a “little bit of municipal support” is likely to make a big difference. Representatives from each organization received their awards during a meeting at Ypsilanti City Hall in March.
“It was so cool to see how much it meant to them to have their work recognized by the city council as a benefit to the community,” Simmons says.
Track club upgrades equipment and offers field trips for young athletes
Sean Brandon Jr., head coach of All About Speed Track Club, comes from a family of athletes. His parents and sisters are proficient in sports as well, and his parents founded the track club in its original Flint location. When Brandon moved to Ypsilanti, he brought that passion for sports with him to establish a branch of All About Speed Track Club.
“We come from a very large sports family, and we believe sports is the great equalizer,” Brandon says. “It teaches kids time management skills, self-improvement, self-identity, and allows them to get an escape from whatever is going on in the outside world. It allows them to refocus, to learn how to work within a team, to be a better teammate, and to be a better person so they can help the team.”
Doug CoombeAll About Speed Track Club coach Sean Brandon Jr.
The club meets indoors December through February, and outdoors at the Ypsilanti Community High School track from June through mid-August. The club includes children from kindergarten through high school, but Brandon says the bulk of his runners are elementary and middle schoolers. The club aims to prepare those younger students for high school sports.
“We provide a foundation of learning about track and field, all the way up to becoming proficient and an actual prospect [for a team],” he says.
The track club’s mini-grant will not only allow the club to buy equipment, like new starting blocks, but also will defray travel expenses to competitions. The club’s young athletes have competed all over Michigan and beyond. Brandon says a few of his student athletes have qualified for national events in New York City; Boston; Greensboro, N.C.; and Des Moines, Iowa.
Doug CoombeJessica Brandon and Sean Brandon Jr. with All About Speed Track Club member Ela-Khasnabis-Upton.
He notes that taking students to a championship, including an overnight stay in a hotel, can cost up to $600 per family.
“The main problem we find with youth sports is that it’s expensive, and this grant will help keep our administrative costs down,” Brandon says.
The grant money will help remove barriers and “make sport more accessible to kids and families,” he says.
Nonprofit funds field trips for youth to try professional trades
Cassandra Vaughn, who co-founded Trades Programs for Youth and Adults with her husband Lawyer Vaughn, says she doesn’t want to detract from local public schools’ great work in promoting career and technical education. Rather, her nonprofit is looking to expand young people’s ideas of the career possibilities open to them.
Vaughn says her organization operates on the principle that “You can’t go where you don’t know.” She wants students to be able to envision themselves in diverse careers, which means they need exposure to those fields and an opportunity to try them on for size.
Doug CoombeTrades Programs for Youth and Adults co-founders Lawyer and Cassandra Vaughn.
That could entail students getting their hands on professional tools, supplies, and other equipment that doesn’t come cheap.
“We’re teaching old-school measurements, taking pieces of wood and measuring them, [and] making tables or chairs,” Vaughn says, noting that young participants have also made and donated dog houses and toy boxes.
“We do not charge the students or parents, but I’ve got to make you aware: tools are pricy,” Vaughn says. She says wood, tools, and insurance all add up.
courtesy Trades Programs for Youth and AdultsA Trades Programs for Youth and Adults class.
The youth mini-grant will help defray those costs and allow the Vaughns to expand their already robust field trip program, which Vaughn refers to as “trade clubbing.” The funds will allow the Vaughns to take students on monthly trips to destinations like Ann Arbor’s Maker Works, or home improvement centers like Menards or Home Depot.
Organizations can begin applying now for the next round of Ypsilanti’s youth mini-grants. Applications must be submitted by Sept. 30. You can find more information on the mini-grant program here.
