November 15th 2023.
Two former Prairie View A&M University students are using their business to make a positive change in their community. Varion Howard and Jirma Proctor, who met as classmates in 1994, have used Poetry Lounge Houston to create spaces for their community to come together and to spotlight up-and-coming spoken word artists.
Howard and Proctor both come from underprivileged communities. They understand the struggles that their youth face, and they want to help them in any way that they can. In late October, they held a school supply drive which was inspired by an interaction Howard had with two students who had been caught stealing uniforms and pastries from a nearby store.
“When the student told me, ‘Tomorrow my brother is going to look like me’, I didn’t realize what he meant," Howard told The Houston Chronicle. “But he was saying that he and his brother didn’t have enough uniforms for school. This is our community, and there are a lot of obstacles in the way of our children with social media, bullying and trafficking. Uniforms and food should be the last thing they should have to worry about.”
Proctor and Howard both know how beneficial education can be, and they don’t want to see their community’s youth struggle with the basic needs of getting an education. Through Poetry Lounge Houston, they’re able to provide a platform to help their community come together and make a positive change.
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