Daily Inspiration: Meet Jada Renee

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jada Renee

Hi Jada, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
The Destination Dream Foundation actually started as a YouTube video series created while I was attending Kent State University! I would go around campus with my friend and interview several artists and creatives on campus from musicians , to street graffiti artists , to DJ’s and ask them “What is your destination dream?” as a way to see if they were looking to make their college art dreams come true. The video series acted as a mental reminder for those creatives to stay the course to making sure they reached their dreams destination.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Building the Destination Dream Foundation has been both smooth and rocky at times. I believe the smooth sailing comes from the fact that I built my for profit company “The INDI Group LLC” and with 10 years of business building , marketing and making connections throughout the Cleveland and California artist network I do believe that helped me build the structure and bones of the Destination Dream Foundation as it assisted me in knowing the basic knowledge of business and sales.

I would say since The INDI Group is an art based business model that this helped me fuse the model into something that could also be relatable to youth in terms of business building for youth interested in building their own brand. Around 2017 I began to have more interest in assisting the youth in business building and mindset building as I began to have opportunities to speak and do art workshops at local elementary and high schools in my hometown of Cleveland. While in the schools I saw the lack of art programming and entrepreneurship perspectives being taught in the schools as the youth of today are interested in more hands on activities when it comes to art and technology.

I saw this being somewhat neglected in the schools I visited so this inspired me to create a curriculum that could be used to educate the youth in art and entrepreneurship based business models starting with fashion design and street fashion concepts simply because this was how I started my business back in 2014. I started a clothing brand at my college called INDI which stands for Individuality and became a natural at creating awareness and marketing strategies to sell my clothing to my peers and customers online to those outside of the Kent State campus.

Although my company INDI was technically a media marketing platform for creatives, back in college, I utilized the student body of my campus to market the brand with apparel first, since I knew the majority of my audience ( college students ) might not relate to the concept of paying for marketing or branding services. I decided to focus on building my clothing brand on campus and this worked out very well in sales and notoriety. So when the time came to building the youth curriculum for fashion design, I knew it would be successful and that the youth would receive the concept very well.

While getting my curriculum into schools and doing more youth workshops, alongside doing marketing for local Cleveland nonprofit organizations the main struggle became seeing how much students didn’t engage in the main education subjects and how schools still struggled to relate to their current interests.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
We specialize in educating the youth on how to create art based business models for their future in order for them to nurture their artistic interests at an early age by molding them into business concepts that they can understand and grow over time.

I am most proud of our community art studio titled the “INDI Art House Studio” located in the Buckeye are of Cleveland. The property belonged to my grandparents and we remodeled / renovated the house into an art studio for local Cleveland youth. Inside of the space we educate the youth on art and business and they can also art supplies and utilize equipment in the property such as our heat press machine , photo studio equipment and our overall space for connection.

You can check it out here : https://youtu.be/8FtaK19MxSc?si=Ve2gDMQO6dEnbjs3

What sets this apart from others is that we are the first neighborhood art studio that is inside of a residential property structure in the Buckeye community of Forest Avenue. While the property is inside of a vibrant community , the neighborhood is also adjacent to community gentrification showing the two sides of a community. What sets us apart is our overall mission to revitalize not just our property but the vacant lots surrounding our property as well in order to be in control of beautifying our area with land enhancement and ownership.

What has been the most important lesson you’ve learned along your journey?
Keep God First.

Keeping God first and “Falling Faith First” with all of my endeavors has made this journey a lot more freeing and exciting. I’m always excited for what’s next and with God on my side I know that all of my dreams are meant to come to reality as I see living proof of them everyday.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.destinationdream.org/
• Instagram: @destinationdream.foundation