We’re celebrating Black History Month by highlighting black creators, supporting black-owned businesses, and fueling the dreams of black artists. Follow Us on Instagram @daretoliveright as we highlight African-Americans who have made contributions that have impacted the world and shaped our culture.

Mission 1865: DARE TO CREATE

CALLING ALL CREATORS

Dare To Create was designed to inspire and highlight artists within the black community. Art has always been a way of expression within the black community. This year we have put out a call to artists everywhere to submit a piece of art based on our Black History Month theme “Black & Proud: Past, Present & Future”. Select artists will be judged by top artists and the winners will be featured in all DTLR stores on screens, social media, and DTLR.com.

SUBMISSION IS EASY:

- Post your art on IG

- Use #DTLRMission1865

- Tag @DareToLiveRight

THE WINNER WILL RECEIVE THE FOLLOWING:

- $1,000 Gift Card

- Art featured on ALL DTLR store screens

- Digital feature across all DTLR social platforms

- Blog post on DTLR.com

MISSION 1865: BLACK HISTORY BUCKS

During the month of February, DTLR Community Outreach will continue supporting black

owned businesses by:

- Telling their story

- Purchasing their products

- Distributing their product on a first come first serve basis

On a random day in select cities, we will pop up to the business and purchase products to show our support on behalf of patrons who are present at the moment.

- (Locations and dates TBD)

THIS IS FREE OF CHARGE, on behalf of DTLR, Inc. (Community Outreach)

Tell us a little about yourself and what you do?

I’m the CEO and founder of Empify. We are a start-up financial literacy program, based in Philadelphia, that shows adults and children how to build wealth.

Our mission at Empify is to educate, empower, and modify the mindset of every individual, by inspiring them to achieve career, life, and financial success. We have programs for children, middle school, high school, and college students in Atlanta, Philadelphia, and New York.

Over 5,000 students have been impacted by our financial education programs. Our focus is showing students how to save money, make money, and invest money. For adults, we are like the Netflix of finance, as we just launched our app, that gives you access to over 100 hours of financial education tools and resources.

How did you get started?

I was born in Philadelphia, and all I wanted to do was make a lot of money and have nice clothes. I never wanted to be an entrepreneur, but I had dreams of working on Wall Street. I went to Howard University, majored in Finance, and had 4 internships, 3 at Wall Street investment banks. I graduated landing my dream career working for one of the biggest banks in the world. Helping individuals who have $25 million or more, manage their money.

After about 8 months of my career, I realized this is something we are using every day in our lives, that is not being taught in the school system. I wanted to take the information that Wall Street and Howard University gave me and give it to people that Wall Street would not talk to.

What’s next?

We want to bring financial education back into our school system by programming in over 100 Schools across this country. Most importantly, we want to put financial education back into the household by showing adults and children how to build wealth together.

Founded by childhood friends, Muhammed Abdul-Hadi and Chef Kurt Evans, Down North Pizza is no ordinary neighborhood pizza joint. It’s one that marries serving top-quality delicious comfort food with the mission of reducing recidivism rates in black communities. Their aim is to help erase employment barriers faced by formerly incarcerated men and women, by providing culinary career opportunities at a fair wage within an equitable workplace.

Executive Chef Michael Carter has been cooking his whole life. Whether it be family reunions, fish fries, or his family's barbeque spot on 52nd Street, their business model is unique because of its honesty. They aim to shine a light on the restaurant industry's backbone, the formerly incarcerated and undocumented workers.

Pizza being a food everyone enjoys was the perfect catalyst to use for the bigger issue at play, which is to talk about the over arching issue of mass incarceration.

What's next for Down North? Everything they do is to better their community. At the top of the list is to build a sustainable community garden across the street from the store. They aim to create a place where their patrons can get fresh produce once they are harvested, build community centers in the Strawberry Mansion area to teach job training skills to the youth, and build a food co-op in the heart of Philadelphia, where people can work and receive memberships on discounted foods.

Head over and grab your personal Detroit Pie at Down North Pizza Today!

Located at: 2804 W Lehigh Ave., Philadelphia, PA

Open Thursday - Sunday only. Be there early because they sell out fast.