Khali Sweeney, September 6th, 2022

Khali Sweeney, September 6th, 2022

In this interview, Khali Sweeney talks about running a boxing gym and growing up on the East side of Detroit.

Detroit Historical Society

Detroit Historical Society

Khali Sweeney

Khali Sweeny was born and raised on the Eastside of Detroit. He went on to be the founder of the Downtown Boxing Gym.

Lily Chen

Detroit, MI

9/6/2022

55:01

Taylor Claybrook

Lily Chen: Okay, let's do a volume test. So I'm going to need you to set a little closer to the mic.

Khali Sweeney: Okay. Can you hear me?

Lily Chen: Yep. You're a little quiet. Okay. All right, so we'll just have you project a little. Project a little? Okay, cool. So this is Lily Chen, today is Tuesday, September 6th, at 10:14 a.m. and we are conducting an interview for the Hustle Project at the Detroit Historical Society. And we are very excited and grateful to be interviewing one of our 36 honorees. All right. So let's get started. So go ahead and tell us your name and spell it out in full.

Khali Sweeney: My name is Khali Sweeney.

Lily Chen: Okay. And, uh, Khali, we know that you you run the downtown boxing gym, and what's the location of the Downtown boxing gym?

Khali Sweeney: The location is 6445 East Vernor Highway, Detroit, Michigan.

Lily Chen: And what year was that founded?

Khali Sweeney: What year was it founded? 2007.

Lily Chen: Okay, awesome. So before we get into the gym, let's talk a little bit about your personal backgrounds. Are you are you from Detroit?

Khali Sweeney: Yes, I'm from Detroit.

Lily Chen: Okay. And are you a west sider?

Khali Sweeney: East sider, all the way.

Lily Chen: All the way. Okay.

Khali Sweeney: All the way.

Lily Chen: All right. So born and raised.

Khali Sweeney: Born and raised.

Lily Chen: Okay. And of course, the gym is on the east side too. All right. Okay. So how have you have your family been on the east side for a long time?

Khali Sweeney: Yeah, my family's been here on the Eastside for I mean, ever since I can remember my grandmother went to school over here. My father. All my aunts. All everybody's eastside.

Lily Chen: Okay. Are you from a big family?

Khali Sweeney: Yeah. I'm from a big family, but I'm not from the family.

Lily Chen: Okay.

Khali Sweeney: If that makes sense. My mother or father gave me away when I was like six weeks old, but I still kept in touch with my biological family, though.

Lily Chen: Okay. And so do you have siblings that you're close to? Yes. Okay. Yeah.

Khali Sweeney: A brother, two half sisters.

Lily Chen: Okay. Cool. And are you the youngest? Oldest?

Khali Sweeney: Um, I'm second to the youngest.

Lily Chen: Okay. All right. So a little bit of a baby, but not. No, not fully the baby either.

Khali Sweeney: Not the baby.

Lily Chen: Not the baby. Okay. So you grew up in Detroit on the east side. And where did you go to school?

Khali Sweeney: Where did I go to school? That's a that's a funny...I mean, that's a that's a kind of complicated question because I went to school all over pretty much.

Lily Chen: Okay.

Khali Sweeney: My school, my schooling was like, um...Schooling was rough for me coming up to the public school system because I didn't learn how to read or write. Not none of the times I was in school, by the third grade. I realized I couldn't read or write, so I would just act out. And so I would get into so much trouble. They would send me to a new school. So I was going to, like, mostly all the schools.

Lily Chen: Wow. Yeah. And that was through DPS. Yes. Okay. So, I mean, that must have hugely influenced what you do today because there's so much literacy work that you're doing.

Khali Sweeney: Correct. Yeah. That's why that's why our motto was books before boxing and books before sports, books before anything.

Lily Chen: Truly.

Khali Sweeney: Academics is the way to go.

Lily Chen: Yeah. So you grew up in DPS, hit third grade, realized you couldn't read and write. And what... At what point did that change?

Khali Sweeney: Um, so, you know, my whole life, people just tell me you're gonna be dead or in jail before you 21. You're not even going to be able to work at a fast food restaurant. You ain't going to be a garbage man. But they never gave me an alternative. They never told me what's the what's the alternative to that?

Lily Chen: Yeah.

Khali Sweeney: Nobody ever asked a critical question. Why are you acting out? They just say, oh, you're just so violent. You do this, you that. They would label me. And they created a narrative for me that I fully embraced the narrative that I was going to be dead in jail before I was 21. So I started living my life like I wasn't going to make it. I didn't care about anything and so on. So my 12th grade year, I believe it was, I got a good report card and and I was like, I went to the teacher and I was like, Bro, how do I have a good report card? I don't even know you. I've skipped this class so much, I don't even know you. He was like, Well, if I"m wrong, everybody wrong. And I walked to this other classroom and I was about to go into the other teacher. I was waiting and I just walked out of the school and never came back. So I said, I might as well live fast, die young. So I dropped out. And know, start running with gangs and doing all the stuff that I shouldn't be doing. I went down a path that they said I was going to go down because they had created that narrative. So I bought into it. And one day my older brother was like he was like a bro, you do understand the rest of the world don't live like this, right? You do know that, right? And I was like, man, get out here. Go back where you from. And so. He's like, No, you need to get out your neighborhood. There's no resources. There's nothing in your community but death and destruction. You need to get out of this community for a minute and just to see the world to see how the rest of the world live. And so I didn't listen to him that day. He asked me to come to his house. He was like. Oh, help me lift this cabinet. So I go to grab my own cabinet. It was a drawer. What was the drawer where you put your clothes? Chest of drawers, no? You know, your bedroom was that think or do you put your clothes in that thing, that whatever the thing.

Lily Chen: Okay.

Khali Sweeney: The thing when you put your clothes in, you know, the dresser. so so I grabbed one in the dresser. He grabbed the other end. I'm left in my hand. He's not moving his end. And I'm like, Man, what are you doing? He was like look at that picture sitting right there on the dresser... What and it's the picture of all my friends on my front porch. Because we were going to skate in in Pontiac, Michigan. And he had a few of his friends on there. He's like, Look, all your friends, he's dead. He's dead. He's dead. He's in jail. He's in jail. He's in jail. He said, Man, young guys in your neighborhood dying for real. He's like, Look at all my friends. I can go hang out with them right now. He said, Man, there's nothing in your neighborhood but death. And I was like, Man, lift the dresser. But I went home and I thought about it. Like he said, don't be the next guy in a picture. And I was like, man, what do I want to do with my life? Well, I started learning how to read. And so I went back to night school and try to get a GED and they were like, You can't get a GED, bro. And I'm like, Wow, I pay my money like everybody else. I was acting crazy. The dude took me in a hallway. He's like, Because you can't read or write at all. He's like, but you seem like intelligent. Let me take you out here to this other classroom and you start from scratch. And so that's what I did.

Lily Chen: Wow.

Khali Sweeney: I know it was a long answer, but.

Lily Chen: No, I mean, it's amazing. You're...I mean, it's so beautiful to hear about that relationship with your brother, where he is looking at you for real, you know, and loves you so much. So to this day, is he still a big part of your journey?

Khali Sweeney: I talk to this guy every day.

Lily Chen: Really? .

Khali Sweeney: Every single day. Even if we mad at each other, I call him every day. He calls me every day.

Lily Chen: Wow. Yeah. Is he part of the boxing gym?

Khali Sweeney: No, he has his own thing.

Lily Chen: But, I mean, he must see your success today and just feel so proud.

Khali Sweeney: He tells me that all the time. So, yeah, that's my big brother, love him.

Lily Chen: Yeah. What's the age gap?

Khali Sweeney: One year.

Lily Chen: One year? Yeah. Wow. So you would think at one year you would fight more than get along.

Khali Sweeney: It's like, you know, my mother and father giving us away when we were young and. And by us being able to keep in touch with each other throughout our life. So our bond actually became tighter. Yeah. We always loved to see each other because like if I was going through something in my neighborhood and I coudl always call my brother, if he was going through something in his neighborhood, he can always call me. So it was like we were real tight.

Lily Chen: Yeah. I cannot believe that you're still so close. That's amazing. It's like a lesson learned for all siblings out there that they can be your rock. Yeah, you know. Okay, so then you start going to night school, and now you're excelling. And tell me about that educational journey. I think there's a lot of people out there who want to go on that journey, but it's scary. Yeah.

Khali Sweeney: So it is, you know, to sit down in a classroom and you're going back to scratch.

Lily Chen: Right.

Khali Sweeney: You know, you're like almost on some kindergarten level type stuff. And, um, you know, you just sitting there and, and I was thinking to myself, like, you know, all of the negative things I've done in my life, you know, in bad situations I put myself in, I said, This is something that's worth it, and I'm going to give 100% as much as I gave 100% to that narrative somebody else created for me. I'm gonna give 100% to change in my life and change in the life of others. So I just I said, whatever it is, this is the path I'm on. I'm going to give it 100%. And I did that. Yeah. And so after that, I ended up getting a job and I just said I would never, ever cut any corners. I would never do anything... Anything that would lead back to that path that I was on. And so I made myself that promise. And, you know, I just went and started working off working more jobs than I should. I was working so much that I wasn't even really sleeping. I was like, I'm gonna do everything or try to catch back up for the 20 something years I wasted. But, you know, you can never catch up, you'll yourself in the ground.

Lily Chen: Yeah. So did you end up getting your GED? Yes. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and how long did it take?

Khali Sweeney: Not too long.

Lily Chen: Wow. So it's. I mean, it's it's a lot of hope for people out there who are experiencing, like, illiteracy and all these things. Like, it's not. It's not too late.

Khali Sweeney: No, it's never too late, you know. There's some great teachers out there.

Lily Chen: Yeah.

Khali Sweeney: I mean, but you got to do the work. You got to meet them. You got to meet them somewhere. You can't just think they're going to just come drop it in your lap. You have to ...you got to hold yourself accountable. You can't go out, hang out, all that type of stuff. You have to literally put the work in. And that's what I chose to do.

Lily Chen: Yeah. So you completely kind of 180 went, you know, a totally different way or you're now like educated and reading, writing and all the things you're working. Too many jobs.

Khali Sweeney: Too many jobs.

Lily Chen: What's the journey to eventually starting this huge nonprofit?

Khali Sweeney: So. I was, um, I saw it like, okay, this could be a win for me, or this could be a win for the community. This could be a win for me or a win for the community because I'm seeing so many guys going down the same path that I was that I was on and I see the guy--then he's missing, you know, I see him today. Oh, he got killed or I see him and he got locked up and it was just more and more every day. I'm like, dang have anybody asked him the critical question, What's going on? What's that aha moment? What does that come to...ou know, you know, to your senses moment. Whoever sat him down and said, listen, you know, the world won't live like this. And so I start just pulling guys to the side like, hey, man, you know, hey, can you read this for me real quick? I don't have my glasses, man. "Ah, don't worry about man, get him to do it then." Oh, now I say, okay. It's not just me. You deflecting like I used to deflect. And so I started getting guys and I started saying, okay, one of the things that I read was you can find out more about a person in an hour of play than you can a lifetime of questioning. And so I said, What's this hour of play look like? How can I get these guys attention enough where I can ask him, ask them the critical questions. So boxing was the icebreaker to a bigger conversation. So I started, Just let me teach you how to box. Let me show you how to do this. You know, let me show you how to do that. And I started working with them, I started asking the critical questions. And before you know it, I had a group of young people, you know, lining up to train. But all the while, I'm trying to figure out what's going on. How can I strengthen you? How can I help you? How can I try to talk you into going back to school? How can I? You know what I mean?

Lily Chen: Yeah.

Khali Sweeney: So that's how I started.

Lily Chen: Wow. Yeah, that was in the early 2000s. And at what point? Did the you know, did that naturally progress into, you know, having an official kind of organization?

Khali Sweeney: So what happened was so. I was at my job one day and the owner of the job I've been working for a while. I saved a lot of money. I mean, I don't hang out, I don't drink, I don't smoke, I don't party. I don't do anything. I live a real disciplined and humble life. And so I'm just saving and saving and saving and and I'm steady working with the kids, like in the park and cutting the grass in the fields, working with them in the fields. And I'm like, man, you know, it's time to get a building. This is like we can't... The weather not right. Or if somebody say we got to move or we can't do it or whatever. So I seen some guys that were moving out of a building or whatever, and I talked to the owner the place and ended up getting a place. And from there I just kept dumping everything I had into it, dumping everything, everything I had into it. And I went from 218 solid muscle down to about 150 lbs or so.

Lily Chen: Whoa.

Khali Sweeney: Yeah, because I used to walk around just asking everybody to help. I'm like, you know, this is a good thing that we're doing. Like, you know, this is a community thing. Why don't everybody chip in? Yeah, nobody would chip in. I just kept. I kept putting everything into it and. Yeah, and...

Lily Chen: Meaning, like, literally blood, sweat, tears.

Khali Sweeney: Yeah. Every dime. Like, I run into people right now, and they'd be like, Man, I remember you. I remember I used to walk up and down through the city of Detroit used to walk to all the businesses, all the churches, all the stores, everywhere, and just asked people for help about your organization that you were trying to build. Yeah, I remember. You know, I have literally business owners come up to me or come to the new gym and be like, Man, I remember. I remember you back in the day, man. You I saw you walking the streets in the snow. I saw you in the rain walking every all the way through the city every day. And so long story short, I did that for a long period of time. Lost my house, lost my car, started...I was sleeping in my car. Some of the family members at the gym, they would ...they would come bring me food and stuff, the kids and stuff. I would go over to the house to eat because they saw how much weight I was losing because I was putting everything into it. And one day, a lady by name, Jessica Houser, she stopped by and she's like, Man, this is something great that you have going on with these kids in the community. And I was like, she like, how can I be a part of this? How can I help you with this? I was like, Lady, I just told these kids that I have to shut it down so I can go back to work to fund this thing because I'm not getting any money from anywhere. And she's like, What? Don't shut it down. Let me see if I can think of some ways to help you fund it. And so she was like, I've never done it before. I don't know how to do it, but I will help you figure out a way to do this. And so she ended up investing every dime she had and ended up sleeping on somebody's couch. And she sold her car. She sold furniture out of her house. She did everything she would sell stuff to, to keep the lights and gas on in the place. And so she ended up homeless. And then after a while, we finally got our 501c3. Yeah, and that's when, um, you know, people started making donations.

Lily Chen: Yeah, the community started kicking in and it was like, um, you know, the Jewish Fund, the, um, the Arabic community, they, they came, they came through, um, um, couple, couple of restaurants that help me out early on, you know, those people, it was it was just a it was just a community effort.

Lily Chen: Yeah. When did you get that 501c3 status?

Khali Sweeney: Oh, man. I can't even think right now. That was so long ago. That was a while ago. I can't think of that right now.

Lily Chen: Okay. Sometime in the 2000s?

Khali Sweeney: Yeah, I think it was, um, I think was 2010.

Lily Chen: Okay. And how did you come up with that name? Downtown Boxing Gym?

Khali Sweeney: Um, because it was close enough to downtown as far as I was concerned.

Lily Chen: Yeah, it was.

Khali Sweeney: Close enough. So I said downtown boxing.

Lily Chen: Okay, cool. So already by the time that you start the organization, you've already got kids that you've been working with for a long time. Yeah. And what's the age range of kids?

Khali Sweeney: The kids from 8 to 18.

Lily Chen: 8 to 18. Okay. So right. In the formative years, when it matters the most. Mm hmm. Yeah. Um, and how many kids do you have coming through today?

Khali Sweeney: I believe we got just under 200 right now and we have a waiting list of about 1600 kids.

Lily Chen: Wow. So, you know, today, downtown Boxing Gym is a staple in the Detroit community. People know this to be one of the major non-profits where kids can do some just amazing after school activities at the time. And it's very, very humble beginnings. So what were kids doing at the time? So we know that they were boxing with you.

Khali Sweeney: So it was boxing, mentorship and then homework help. Okay. So I would tell adults, listen, do not pay me a dime. I just want you to help kids with homework. And so I would have people come in and work out with me early and then they would do homework with the kids. So. Don't pay me a dime. Just do homework with the kids. So our kids all came to the program. They had a safe place to go. I would mentor them, me and a couple other guys, and we would make sure that they had their homework done. And so the homework was always like the focus, really. The homework is the focus because education is what's going to move the needle. And so now we have like scholars. Some of our kids went to some of the best colleges in the country and they come back and they help the other kids and they do peer...their peers tutor them now. So some of our kids may be 4.0 students, but they'll work with the other kids, you know what I mean? So now have to get the other guys to do it now.

Lily Chen: Yeah.

Khali Sweeney: I don't have to train people no more. I had the kids to do it.

Lily Chen: Yeah. So in the very beginning, you are I mean, you're doing everything, you're teaching, you're boxing. Um, and we're doing homework, which is pretty crazy. Yeah. How many kids were you serving in the beginning?

Khali Sweeney: Oh. In the beginning, I think it was about 70 kids.

Lily Chen: Wow. Yeah.

Khali Sweeney: For whatever reason, boxing has this allure. It has this draw. You know, it brings the the quote unquote bullies and it bring the kids who get bullied.

Lily Chen: Mhm.

Khali Sweeney: But when you get us out of there is the equalizer. See, once you realize that you're not as tough as you think you are, the bullies tend to humble themselves quickly. And the kids who didn't know that they had it in them, they, they tend to level up. Well, I mean, so boxing, you know, we call it, we call the, um, the boxing ring, the lie detector machine. You know, the boxing ring is like a polygraph machine. The truth will come out.

Lily Chen: Wow. That's such a good way to look at it. Yeah. And it's cool to think about. The way that boxing itself is also a learning process for these kids.

Khali Sweeney: Yeah, boxing is unlike any other sport it's one of those sports that you cannot play. It's a lifestyle. This is something that you have to be completely committed to or you can potentially hurt yourself. And so it takes a whole level of respect, discipline. You have to be able to listen to your coach without turning around looking for them. You have to be able to block out all the outside noises and you have to be able to fight through the pain to get to what you want to your goal. And so boxing is definitely...a great instrument for learning, but it's not the only one. So right now. Out of 200 kids, we only have one kid or two kids. I think it's just one kid that actually boxes the rest of the kids out there for educational program. Because our literacy program is I mean, I brag on it because I seen kids who the school system have given up on now become honor students and go to some of the best colleges in the country. Yeah. Our own math adventuring ,reading adventuring and our computer coding, cooking classes, you know, our music studio, you know, and our our sports sampling, health and wellness, all those type of things. Our chess club, our guys who play chess. There are some of the best chess players.

Lily Chen: Yeah.

Khali Sweeney: Yeah. One young lady who beat the...

Lily Chen: I know. She was in the news the other day, right? Yeah. Yeah. She beat like a grandmaster, right? That was so fun to read. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. Um, okay. So in the beginning, did you have a team of people that helped you?

Khali Sweeney: In the beginning, it was me.

Lily Chen: Yeah.

Khali Sweeney: It was me in the beginning. And, um, you know, we had a guy by the name of Pastor King who was riding past and saw me out there working with the kids. And, you know, he came in and dedicated ten years of his time nonstop. He didn't he didn't miss a day. Pastor King was there for for free for years. And it was me and Pastor King, we were just working, you know? Yeah, we were putting in the work and training and mentoring these young men and women, you know, and it was. It was a cool thing.

Lily Chen: Yeah. Um. Go ahead.

Khali Sweeney: No, I was going to say my thanks to his wife, Trina King, who, when I was going down to about 140 pounds, she would cook food. And leave everybody out of the house, she would just leave food in the kitchen for me to eat. So that's...

Lily Chen: Cool. Yeah. Trying to keep you physically alive. Keep me back alive. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Something that I've been so proud to see is there are lots of young girls that are part of that community. And I think. You know, just as a woman, it's hard to see yourself in in such a masculine sport like boxing. But I think there are so many women that have benefited from the mentorship and the teaching that's available at your nonprofit. So have have like young women been part of that from yeah, from the beginning?

Khali Sweeney: There's always been young women there. Um, um, yeah, I mean, they don't get treated any differently. So you know, you know, they get the bloody nose too. Yeah. So and they give them so I can, you know, one of the, one of my favorite young women who was not a part of our program, but who've always been a part of our family is Carissa Seals the gold medal, two time gold medal winner. She's she's not a part of the gym. She's never been a part of the gym, but she's always been a part of our family. She always shows love. She always comes and workout with our kids because she hung out at our gym as a little girl. They would bring her down on weekends to spar our boys and she would have to fight our boys. And they would...They cut her no slack and she cut them no slack. She can run with the best of our boys. Yeah, when she was a little girl. And so now, whenever she competes, she always stop by the city of Detroit, so.

Lily Chen: Wow. Yeah. I mean, and now she has gold medals.

Khali Sweeney: She has all that. She have all the titles to all the women titles, too.

Lily Chen: Yeah.

Khali Sweeney: And the young girls who are there with us, you know. You know, we always push. We always push education.

Lily Chen: Yeah.

Khali Sweeney: And but if they choose to chase their dream of boxing, we by all means, we'll we'll push them towards that. But they've all chose to go off into medical and other stuff like that. So.

Lily Chen: Yeah.

Khali Sweeney: we might get a young lady that wants to go all the way with the boxing one day.

Lily Chen: Yeah, well, now, like you've said, you know, it is the downtown boxing gym, but kids can pursue any dream. There are lots of things that kids can do.

Khali Sweeney: Yeah, we have, um, we have a sport sample. And so the boxing is just the icebreaker to a bigger conversation. But for many kids, it's chess. We play badminton all the time. We all we have a basketball court. A volleyball court. We have a tennis court. Um, we have, um, lacrosse, soccer field. And we now currently right now install an ice skating rink, so.

Lily Chen: Yeah.

Khali Sweeney: Or we'll give you a music studio because a lot of them be in the music studio doing poetry or our cooking classes they love our cooking classes in our STEAM...What is it now? STEAM or STEM?

Lily Chen: I think it's I think they turned them into STEAM because they added the art.

Khali Sweeney: Yeah. Yeah, right, right. And all of our kids sign up for that steam. Steam or whatever. Yeah, they sign up for that all the time constantly because it's optional and they all sign up for it.

Lily Chen: Yeah. So are all of this services free?

Khali Sweeney: Of course. This free is always going to be free as long as I'm alive.

Lily Chen: Yeah.

Khali Sweeney: You know.

Lily Chen: Which is really important, I think people don't realize how big of a difference it is when all of rich kids out there have access to after school activities. Um. So it's all that more important to invest in our communities, right?

Khali Sweeney: So at the gym, we want to remove all obstacles. We don't want it to be anything that can stand in the way of you becoming the best version of yourself that you can be.

Lily Chen: Yeah.

Khali Sweeney: You know, we want to we build our program around the child whatever you show interest in we're going to see we're going to see if we can find those resources to make that happen. And we're not going to spare no expense. So, you know, a lot of times people ask like, well, why do you guys have this much of a budget? Why do you guys. Because we don't cut corners. You know, we believe that the kids should have every opportunity to be the best version of themselves that they can be. And I don't care what it costs. We're going to make it happen.

Lily Chen: Mm hmm.

Khali Sweeney: And so, yeah, we don't shortcut, we don't cut. We don't pinch pennies when it comes to our children's education in the future.

Lily Chen: Yeah, absolutely. Um, today you're in a different place. Right from where you first started.

Khali Sweeney: Correct.

Lily Chen: And when did that happen?

Khali Sweeney: Seven years ago. So let's go back seven years.

Lily Chen: Okay. So seven years ago, you're now starting to experience enough success that you're going to move to a new place. Mm hmm. Okay. Tell me about. Tell me about that journey.

Khali Sweeney: Um, it was like what I just was talking about. It was, um. We had far too many kids on a waiting list, and that building was not big enough to accommodate that volume of kids. Yeah. And I was thinking to myself like, why do we have a waiting list to get in the program when the Wayne County morgue don't have a waiting list? They'll pack you in there. The Wayne County jail don't have a waiting list. They'll find a place for you to go. Well, here it is, kids and families who really want something positive or productive for the community. And we have a waiting list. I'm like, man, we have to we have to find another facility to get these kids off this waiting list. And so, you know, it was a lot of naysayers, a lot of people saying, like, why don't you just do this? Why don't you just do that? Don't get this. Don't get that. I'm like, no, we can't spare any expense because this is something this is a valuable resource. Our kids are the future. And if we truly believe that, we have to invest in the future. And so we made the investment and got a bigger building. And, you know, it was it was rough, but it started to come together because more people started seeing the importance of of investment to the youth.

Lily Chen: Yeah. So at the point at which you at that point your team is now bigger, is that right.

Khali Sweeney: Team is growing at this point. Yeah.

Lily Chen: Okay. How many how much how big is your staff today?

Khali Sweeney: Right now, I believe just under 50.

Lily Chen: Okay. So, I mean, it's huge. Big. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and tell me about that process of, uh, starting to, starting to take on a team and starting to actually work with other people.

Khali Sweeney: Well, you know. We have started building the team in the old facility. You know, it was it was a small team, but a superstar team of dedicated people who who showed that they're all about the mission. The mission is the kids in our community. This is not about putting a feather in your cap. It's not about seeing how far up the corporate ladder you can climb. It's about what happened in your life to get you to this point. Whatever happened in your life, they got you to this point and tell me that story and give me that testimony. If you don't have a story that there's no reason for us to even talk. Because the mission is the kids. And so we've got to make sure that we align. And so once I found out that we align with everybody aligned, we just started pushing hard. And so we carried that same mentality on with the rest of the staff, Hey, what is your story? Why are you here? Because these kids may open up to you and never open up to nobody else again. So they have to know that you're committed and you're here for the long ride. Yeah. And so give me a testimony while you're here. I forget what the resume say. That's those boxes. We don't check boxes around here. What's the story? And once they gave me these stories, you know, we just start building a team like that.

Lily Chen: Yeah.

Khali Sweeney: So we've got a dedicated staff of all superstars. I love them.

Lily Chen: That's amazing. Yeah. I mean, what you're talking about is so different from, like, corporate hiring or even traditional hiring, which it's. It's all about kind of your public accolades. And instead, it's, hey, what's your journey? You know, because we have like we have experienced oppression. And what does that look like and how did you make it out? How are you resilient, right? Right. Yeah. Yeah. I'm so glad that you've had success in building a team, because I think so many young entrepreneurs and dreamers, um, it's hard to, like, you know, go from being a one person show to now like a 50 person show. Right. Yeah.

Khali Sweeney: Yeah. So, yes, it is a journey, you know, everybody. Oh, man, we have good days. We have bad days. But one of the things that I as a quote unquote leader, I mean, like, if I walk into a classroom and a teacher tells me, Hey, Khali I need you to scrape the gum from under the tables right now. Then I jump down and scrape the gum from under the tables because I understand to be a leader, you actually have to be a follower. And somebody is in a better position to teach a class than I am. So she definitely doesn't need or he doesn't need to be scrapping the gum. That's my job. Sometimes you can't. A lot of people think I'm the plumber or the gardener. Sometimes when I'm in that place because there's no task in that building that I won't do. Well, you know, I mean, so, you know, some people think other people are the actual CEO. They don't even know who I am. Yeah, because we move as one our whole team, you may see that our own transportation director sees that we have a fleet of vehicles that go out to pick kids up across the ...across the city from almost every school district. And you may see her under the boxing ring with a hammer, you know, putting in bolts and stuff, lifting the thing up because we're all interchangeable. We all work as one team. Everybody in our facility is called a coach. Yes. That's a title for everybody.

Lily Chen: Yeah.

Khali Sweeney: You know, so that's amazing.

Lily Chen: I mean, you're talking about staying humble.

Khali Sweeney: You have to.

Lily Chen: Yeah.

Khali Sweeney: Yeah. We don't do victory laps.

Lily Chen: Yeah. I mean, like you said, it's mission focused. I'm just so proud to you know, when people say entrepreneurs, sometimes I think the implication is people that are out here to make money. But that's not the case.

Khali Sweeney: Not for me. You know, I think about like I think about this. Right. And people like, I think this. Right. I know the change that I want that I want to see is not going to happen in my lifetime.

Lily Chen: Yeah.

Khali Sweeney: So I want to prepare the young people that they are actually living in a time where space travel is real. Space travel is real. And I don't want any kid to get left behind because if you're not up to date, you're going to get left behind. And I want to make sure that our kids have a fighting chance and I mean, really a contribution, you know, because these kids really. Sometimes I look at some of these kids and I say, man, this guy may take us beyond Mars and back.

Khali Sweeney: Yeah, you know what I'm saying?

Khali Sweeney: And I've got to treat him or her like that. I have to say that this is our future. This is the future of mankind, the human race. This is it right here. We only got one shot to get it right. So mission first.

Khali Sweeney: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And and really, it's the kids that have just so much important lived experience that the kids that have overcome barrier after barrier after barrier that are going to change the world, that continue to change the world. So. Yeah, um.

Khali Sweeney: That's why, you know. One of our sayings, we train kids for life. We don't we don't train kids for sports. We train kids for life. Yeah. You know, so when our own financial literacy, our own elementary kids are taking financial literacy courses. Not that surface level financial literacy. They're taking real financial literacy courses. Middle school and high school. Different. And we have different companies coming in and teaching it just to make sure that they have a solid foundation, you know? From our coding, we don't want to play video games. We want to build them.

Khali Sweeney: Yeah. Yeah.

Khali Sweeney: You know what I mean? So just want to make sure they in the right space.

Khali Sweeney: What's amazing? So you were a, uh, around 15 years, is that right at this point?

Khali Sweeney: 15, 16? Something like that.

Lily Chen: 15 something like that. You must now have kids that have grown up.

Khali Sweeney: Yeah. Some of them come back and work at the gym, too.

Lily Chen: Wow.

Khali Sweeney: You know, some of the guys, when they home from college, they come work at the gym. Some of the young ladies come to work there. Um. Yeah. Yeah, we. We have a lot of kids.

Lily Chen: Yeah.

Khali Sweeney: And we also...we also, um. We have a college and career readiness, but we also follow them through college today. 25.

Lily Chen: Wow.

Khali Sweeney: Yeah. So we have a dedicated person for that, too.

Lily Chen: Okay.

Khali Sweeney: To make sure that, you know, you don't just go to college and then you don't have no support. So, no, we have a support network that's going to work with just those kids that are in college.

Lily Chen: Yeah. So all of the kids that you serve are from Detroit.

Khali Sweeney: And the surrounding area.

Lily Chen: Okay. Yeah, obviously not exclusive to the Eastside. But, you know, there are those people that are like, I'm not going to cross that line.

Khali Sweeney: No, man. Our our our vans are like you can see our vans on the edge of the city. Like, I'm talking like almost Telegraph. You know, they are the vans are everywhere.

Lily Chen: Yeah.

Khali Sweeney: Harper Woods, Eastpointe. You know, um, downriver. They're down there picking up kids all day every day.

Lily Chen: Yeah. All the way to Grandmont. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it's important because something that people don't realize. Of course, we have huge literacy barriers here. Um, and not at fault of the child, but at the fault of our systems right at play. But we also have transportation barriers.

Khali Sweeney: Yeah, transportation is a huge problem. Yeah. For some folks. And that's one of the things that, you know, through our partners, we were able to get a fleet of vans at a real reasonable price. Um, it's just right now just maintaining them is like a, you know, it's, you got to raise money to maintain, maintain the gas and the pay for the drivers and stuff like that. And just to keep drivers on staff is just becoming a costly endeavor. But it's one that we willing to take on that responsibility because we've got to remove that, that hurdle for these kids. Um. Yeah, but the transportation is really rough in the city right now.

Lily Chen: Yeah. So running a nonprofit, um, you know, it's, it's different from, like, obviously a for profit business where you are offering your services for free. You're a mission based organization, but you still have to be financially solid. So tell us if you have any advice or guidance for people who are starting a nonprofit. You know, they got to get into grant writing. They got to get into all these areas that are potentially new.

Khali Sweeney: So running a nonprofit is exactly, exactly identical to running a for profit business itself, except for you don't have the exchange of cash like that. I mean, you have to file your taxes, you know? You know what I mean? You have to you have to fill out paperwork. You have to you know, you have to deal with the IRS. You have to deal with the attorney general. You know, you've got to deal with the the treasury. You've got to have every type of paperwork you could think of to even be a nonprofit. Truthfully, you know, you have to report quarterly, just like everybody else do, you know? And, um. Except for you providing a service for free? Yep. You know what I mean? So my advice is to first get a solid business plan and then pay for audit. Get an audit. Um, bring in some third party people to audit you to make sure you have an audit, solid business plan, and make sure you keep up to date with every single thing. Keep track of every every single receipt. Because, I mean, it's not a personal piggy bank. You can't take one thing and use it to a for something else. If you have a if you have a restricted grant, that's a restricted grant. You can't use that restricted grant to not pay for a light bill. You can't do it. Yeah. So you have to ask for what you really need. So if I really need if I really need 200,000, I'm not going to say, well, can you give me 100,000? I must say no, I need 200,000 plus.

Lily Chen: Yeah.

Khali Sweeney: Just to make sure I need 200,000 plus in case anything else incurs. So, I mean, you just got to be real diligent. You have to cross the T's, dot the i's, and, um. Yeah, I'd be really, really mindful who you put in charge of your money. Yeah, because the attorney general doesn't play. Yeah, not in Michigan.

Lily Chen: Yeah.

Khali Sweeney: And you'll have a prosecutor, somebody knocking at the door.

Lily Chen: Yeah. I'm sure there are a lot of kind of hard lessons learned along that way.

Khali Sweeney: No, we we've been great because we have a we have a solid team. And I told them from the beginning, like, I don't cut corners.

Lily Chen: Yeah.

Khali Sweeney: Whatever it's going to cost to get it done, let's do it the right way and surround ourself with the right people. You can't, you can't you can't expect to grow a nonprofit with just your your immediate circle or your network unless you have a really connected network. And your board can't be, you know, people who don't have a network. And so we built a strong board. We built a strong network of people. We hired the right people and spent the money wisely, you know, in advance.

Lily Chen: Yeah.

Khali Sweeney: And it paid off in the future where pay is paying off now.

Lily Chen: Yeah, that's amazing. So I mean, today you are supported by I think do you have your foundation grants, you have corporate funding, you have private individual donors, is that right? Correct. Yeah. So yeah.

Khali Sweeney: No money from the city or state.

Lily Chen: Yeah. So just lots of public support for what you do.

Khali Sweeney: Yeah, well, we do.

Lily Chen: Yeah, yeah. Um, any wish like that you that you could if you could make something come true. You know, moving forward into the future, what would that be?

Khali Sweeney: Any wish. Let me see. I don't know. Um. We would definitely, um. I don't know. Let me think. Let me think. I don't know. It definitely have to be something about education. You know what I mean? So, um. I don't know. I don't know any wishes. Everything is coming...Everything is coming true right now. So I don't know. I don't know about any wish.

Lily Chen: The best answer? Yeah.

Khali Sweeney: Everything is happening. Like, you know everything about that that I hope for is happening. You know, our our education, our academic program is doing well. All my kids are thriving. I mean, I'm seeing these guys go and these young ladies go to some of the best colleges in the country. They're doing well and not getting sent home for academic probation. Only thing I would ask is that what I was forced to strengthen our own, our program even more to like a master's program or something or, you know, that has some S.A.T., you know, you know, type curriculum or something that would just get them ready for all that type of stuff, too. You know, I mean, early...more teaching staff. You know. Stuff like that.

Lily Chen: Yeah. You are. Are you connected to the local schools or. No. Okay. So it's really addressing kids kind of after the school process.

Khali Sweeney: Yeah. So we hire we hire teachers, we hire real teachers, real certified teachers, and we pay them a real salary because we want them to do a real job.

Lily Chen: Yeah.

Khali Sweeney: And you know, we want to give them everything that they can that they need to continue to make our kids better. And so, like I said, I would love to just add to our academic staff. Yeah. That's that's like a goal of mine, like, to, you know, I want I want to bring in science teachers. I want to bring in, you know, more teachers and stuff like that, math people who can really do math at a high level because we have some kids who are just like blind to the math. They're so fast and so good at it that I want to own I want to make it harder for them, you know? I mean, I want I want to get a teacher that know someone that, you know, with the letters and stuff.

Lily Chen: That crazy stuff.

Khali Sweeney: Yeah. I need one of those teachers now.

Lily Chen: Yeah. Yeah. Um, it's so cool to hear that because you've got, I mean, you've got young kids, but people, I mean, kids can do crazy things. Oh, yeah.

Khali Sweeney: Yeah. I mean, I met a young I met a young man who said his math ability surpassed, like all the teachers that we have on staff.

Lily Chen: Wow.

Khali Sweeney: Yeah, we have. We have a kid who, um, with the, um, he started working with the fiber optics and the fiber optics company that was working with us. They were like, This kid is a genius. He's brilliant.

Lily Chen: Wow.

Khali Sweeney: And he started surpassing like, like everybody. And I think he was like 15 or 16.

Lily Chen: Wow. Yeah. Even the news of the that young woman who was a chess player, that was so cool. I mean, she's she's brilliant. Yeah.

Khali Sweeney: She's brilliant. I mean, she beat me a couple of times.

Lily Chen: Really?

Khali Sweeney: A couple of times. I mean, she beat me without even really thinking. And this is when she was younger. When she was younger. Younger.

Lily Chen: Wow.

Khali Sweeney: She was like, Do I have to play you again? I was like, No. I think I went in my car and cried. I don't know. But I think she's probably like 11 or 12 when she beat me.

Lily Chen: Yeah. And she did it fast too, because in that game she was it that she had the regular two minute and he had one minute? Okay. I just know that it went really quickly and she won.

Khali Sweeney: Yeah. She's pretty nice.

Lily Chen: Yeah, that's awesome. Well, any are there any kind of stories that you want to share, advice that you want to give? Um, or, you know, we want to hear kind of the crucial parts of your journey and let the public know.

Khali Sweeney: Well, the, um. The most. I mean, the advice that I give everybody is like, if you. If you don't love what you do, if you don't love it, then you might be in the wrong profession. Like, there's not a day that I get up that I hate going to work. I love going to work, you know? And it giving 100% every time I go to work. When I come home, I'm the last person I see in a mirror. And I feel good about myself. You know what I mean? And I wake up the next day. I can't wait to get to work. I think about going to work. You know what I mean? So my advice is like, find something that you love and give it and give it your all. And it'll give back 100 times, you know, to give back to you 100 times more. So that's my advice.

Lily Chen: That's great. Lots of our organizations, of course, had to be very creative when adapting to COVID. Um. Everything you do with your kids is kind of in person. Oh, we can check the time. 10:58. Okay, cool. Um, how did you. What did that look like? Adapting to a pandemic.

Khali Sweeney: So adapting to the pandemic for us was not that big a deal. We so we heard about what was going on. Um, we had a staff meeting. Um, everybody. Everybody closed down. I believe it was a Friday. I believe was a Friday. But we never missed a day of programing. And we started. We were back up and running. Everybody closed on Friday. We were back up and running Monday morning, Monday morning. What we did was we took all the seats out of all our vans. We filled up all our vans with food and PPE, and we sent a home to all our families. We didn't just we didn't send food home to the families, just to the kid that's in the program. We figured out how many people were in the house and we sent food home to the whole family to make sure that they have food. Just to make sure everybody had food. We... We had the PPE. We had all that stuff Monday. By Monday morning, all eight of our vans were on the road. They were driving. And then we went to some our initial supporters, like the local pizza place, Supinos pizza and a couple other restaurants that supported us in the beginning. We went and got food from all those restaurants that were struggling, you know, during the pandemic. We got food from all those guys and we sent food home. We sent food home to the families.

Lily Chen: Wow.

Khali Sweeney: You know, and we we reached out to other organizations that we know that's doing good work in the city. And we know that they didn't have vehicles. We we offered our services to these other organizations. We partnered up with them. And we make sure we deliver stuff, PPE to date to the people that they work with. Then we started working on connectivity, making sure that everybody had access to the Internet, making sure that everybody had access to computers. So we sent home a bunch of computers to a lot of kids. A lot of kids. And um, yeah. Wow. So we ended up when everybody was letting people off work, we started hiring more people. Instead of firing people or laying people off, we started hire more people because we knew it was some essential workers who were going to have to go to work and their kids are going to have to be home. Somebody will have to work with those kids. So we started, we had cohorts of kids. We had them come in the building and we kept those group of kids away from the other group of kids. And we just worked with those kids to make sure that they didn't lose any any school.

Lily Chen: Wow.

Khali Sweeney: So we had teachers come in at six in the morning and then wait for those parents to get off work. And then we switched to another group with another group of kids and switched the staff out. So yeah.

Lily Chen: Wow. I mean, that is really adapting. And not only are you adapting to keep your business alive, but you are adapting to help the whole community around you.

Khali Sweeney: That's what it's for.

Lily Chen: Yeah, that's amazing. Um, and, you know, kids were hurt. Hugely by the pandemic. Losing the opportunity to grow in a safe world, it was really hard to see that. So I'm so glad that there were so many organizations like yours that responded to that need.

Khali Sweeney: Yeah. I mean, when you when you do community work, you've got to you've got to understand it's the whole community. It's not just who you want it to be. It's the whole community. Everything that we do is like to move the needle forward for everybody. Yeah, you know, we don't we don't try. We don't we try not to leave anybody out in any way we can help. We're trying to help. You know, cause. I learned that lesson. So let me there's a lesson that that you could learn from my struggle. When I first started a gym, I told you I was walking around.

Lily Chen: Yeah.

Khali Sweeney: I was walking to... But I was only walking to certain people. Because I thought, you know what this is? Who should help? Because this is where we from. We live in this neighborhood, this our neighborhood. And so I didn't go to every single person on the block. I just went to certain people like, Hey, you live here? You around me every day. You look like me. You should help. And I kept that. I kept doing that. And everybody who wanted to help, I would push away. I found the syndrome. I would push them away. Move! Go away. No, not me. If you don't look exactly like me. If you don't sound exactly like me, if you don't walk and talk like me. If you're not from the same neighborhood, grew up with the same circumstance. But that's not a community. Everybody in the community don't look like you. Everybody in the community don't sound like you. Everybody community, don't... know what I mean? That doesn't mean that they're not a part of the community. So once I stepped out of the way and removed that that that barrier and allowed everybody to come in to help everybody put their hands on this project, that we were able to lift this project higher than what it ever was. Because the way I was doing it. Just me. I was sinking it in the ground. I have found the syndrome. I had to remove my biases. I had to remove everything that I thought and say, if it's really for the community, it has to be the community. Everybody in the community, we all have to benefit from this. We all have to work on this. And that's why I moved out the way. And we all start working together and mayors feel so much better. You know, I have friends from all over the world. We all know we might come from different places, but we are all on the same team.

Lily Chen: Wow.

Khali Sweeney: You know, so.

Lily Chen: Thank you for sharing that. I think I have to say, like every founder I've ever met deals with founder's syndrome.

Lily Chen: Oh, yeah.

Lily Chen: Yeah. Really. Yeah.

Khali Sweeney: Yeah. You have to get over that because that will. That will run your organization in the ground. Yeah. I mean, if you have any type of I mean, you know, if you have any type of biases or any type where it's not about you, it's not about you, it's about the mission. And my and my thing was like, I just was skeptical of anybody who didn't come from the ghetto, who didn't come from the struggle, who didn't come from like where I came from. I've been shot, I've been stabbed, you know? I mean, I have been in all types of situations. If you didn't come from that, I didn't trust you.

Lily Chen: Yeah.

Khali Sweeney: If you ain't come from the gutter. I didn't trust. What sense would have made? Does it make no sense in the world? And so now it's like, you know, I'm trying to get out of that mindset. And in order for me to get out of that mindset, I had to leave all of that type of thinking behind. And I had to think, like my brother said, the world doesn't live like this. The world doesn't live like this, bro. You do understand that the rest of the world don't live like this. So I had to go back to that mindset of like, what? What would this person do in this situation?

Lily Chen: Yeah.

Khali Sweeney: You know, he wouldn't turn down his help. And so I started really like saying the mission is what's important to me.

Lily Chen: Yeah. So. Yeah. That's amazing. Okay, so I have last two questions.

Khali Sweeney: Last two.

Lily Chen: Questions. What is what does hustle mean to you and what does Hustler mean to you?

Khali Sweeney: Well. To hustle. It's a hustle. To me. My my definition of hustle is to. Actually get up and give it 100%. You know. I'm going give it 100% every time I touch it. Whatever I do, I'm gonna give 100%. You know, even if. Even if it seems like I'm not going nowhere, if it even if it seems like a start out, I will still get up and keep chipping at it. Chipping at a chip. Another because. You never know the next swing. It may all break through and everything. You know, you move to the next level. A lot of people, you know, if they know how to hustle, they know how to drive. You know, if they don't see it immediately, they give up. It took me three years, three years of grinding before it happened. And I seen a lot of people give up on their dreams too early. They gave up too soon. MAN Just give me one more swing two more swings. Three...Whatever it's going to take until it happened, you know? So that's what hustle is to me. It's just that determination, that drive to keep going, push yourself, keep pushing yourself, even though it don't look like this is paying off. You got to keep pushing.

Lily Chen: Yeah.

Khali Sweeney: So that's also to me and hustler. A hustler. I mean, that's somebody who doesn't need... Hustler is somebody who doesn't really need to be motivated. It's a natural instinct. It's in the DNA it's in the make up, is in their own characters and everything about them that they do that that, you know, it shines through regardless of whatever it is. You see a guy that's out there on a baseball diamond when they throw that ball. That's in his DNA. You know, the average person, you know, a guy who does a had a hustle in him. He's not doing that. Cause he thinking about oh I might hurt my arm, might hit my face. I might knock my teeth out, this guy... He's like, man, I got to do what I got to do what I need to do for the mission.

Lily Chen: Yeah.

Khali Sweeney: And so he's diving for that ball. He gonna catch it, and he gonna throw it to home plate, too, because he had an energy to do it.

Khali Sweeney: Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you for this fantastic conversation. It was such an honor to talk to you. And we've talked about, you know, your kind of incredible journey and a lot of the struggles that you've been to. But we should mention, you know, downtown boxing gym is I mean, I think it's like the most successful nonprofit in Detroit. I mean, it is huge. Everyone knows it. Everybody knows it, you know? So I just feel so proud and grateful. Thank you for what you do. Thank you. All right.