With Henry Bloch as his mentor, KC man opens space to help more African American boys
One glass-walled corner of the new High Aspirations youth mentoring headquarters has been deemed “The Henrys Room.”
At the back of the room, flanked by framed newspaper clippings, is a nearly 20-year-old photo of Henry Wash, a tall young black man, standing next to Henry Bloch, a shorter, much older white man.
Wash is the founder of the nonprofit organization that is finally getting its own space after mentoring hundreds of African American boys since 2004 through weekly meetings at libraries and churches. Bloch, the now 96-year-old co-founder of H&R Bloch, inspired the organization through his own mentoring of Wash.
“At the end of the day that’s what Mr. Bloch has done for me is he’s helped me find my purpose and what I want to do with my life,” Wash said. “I believe everyone should be able to do that.”
Wash was a student at Metropolitan Community College when the photo was taken, a member of the first class of Bloch Scholars. He came from a hardscrabble background: malnourished and abandoned as an infant, he spent seven years in foster care and struggled in his early school years.
Bloch was a titan of Kansas City business, who was raised middle-class before climbing to stratospheric socioeconomic heights as the CEO of the largest commercial tax preparation business in the world.
On the surface the two shared little other than a first name.
But Wash said that as the two soft-spoken but determined men got to know each other, a connection formed almost instantly.
“We just hit it off,” Wash said.
Wash’s first mentor, former KCTV5 news anchor Thurman Mitchell, had died about a year earlier. So Bloch asked Wash’s adoptive mother if he could mentor the young man.
With Bloch’s guidance, Wash graduated from college, got a job and started High Aspirations to help boys who came from backgrounds similar to his own.
Seven years later, in 2011, he was working at Freightquote when he got a call from Bloch.
“I thought it was a call for us to go to lunch again like we normally do,” Wash said. “But he wasn’t calling me for lunch this time; he was calling because he thought it was time for me to do this (mentoring program) full-time.”
With Bloch’s backing and Wash’s leadership, the program for African American boys thrived.
The kids, ages 8 to 18, set goals, bring in their report cards and meet with their mentors at least once a week, with at least one check-in phone call in between. The program saw GPAs rise by almost 20 percent. When most of the boys left the program, they were headed either to college, trade school, the military or a steady job.
On Saturday the program reached a new milestone with a soft opening of the new mentoring center in a remodeled brick building on the corner of East 27th Street and Charlotte Street.
The center won’t officially open until next month, but Wash and the rest of the staff invited the neighborhood for a cookout and a tour. It features a full kitchen and a dining area with three long wooden tables.
About 25 boys sat on benches around one of the tables Saturday, playing chess to the sound of hip-hop music coming from a speaker in the corner.
Wash said the new facility will give mentors a reliable place to meet with the kids in between the usual Saturday sessions. The dedicated space will also allow for new programs and he said the boys have already made a long list of things they want to try: learning to change oil in cars, arts and crafts, robotics, making music, virtual reality and science experiments.
He’s also outfitting a back room with a barber shop, a giant chess board and a video gaming system that the boys can use as a reward for staying on track.
“If they’re doing what they should be doing, they can go in there.” Wash said.
The new space also provides the opportunity to scale up the program. Wash has 70 kids who meet with their mentors for two hours on Saturdays. He’s hoping to add another Saturday session and a Sunday session so High Aspirations could serve 210 kids at a time.
The demand is there. Wash said if he had more mentors, he could add the second session almost immediately.
Aaron Smith, a 13-year-old who has been part of High Aspirations for several years, said he likes how the program combines fun with important life lessons.
“I like how they teach us to be respectful,” Smith said. “They’re really good at keeping us out of the streets. They teach us how to make money, and how to save.”
Wash is all in on helping kids like Smith the way that Bloch helped him.
“I personally believe this is an opportunity for the young men who haven’t in the past had their act together to get their act together and do something very, very phenomenal,” Wash said. “They can pursue their dreams. So now we don’t have to worry about a kid who probably could have been out there robbing somebody. Now we can help them learn how to be an entrepreneur, get a job, get a trade, go to college. Give them some opportunities to do something different.”
For more information, visit www.highaspirationskc.org or call 816-305-3334.
