High school students are discovering HBCUs across the country thanks to a North Carolina nonprofit
GREENSBORO, N.C. (WGHP) — One Triad-based organization is working to show high school students HBCUs across the country. The Motivational Foundation is a nonprofit organization that aims to expose students to different pathways of higher education.
“We focus on students in highly impacted schools. We do a lot of advocacy work for HBCUs, and we connect those students from our highly impacted high schools across the country to HBCUs in an effort to increase student enrollment at HBCUs,” Founder Blake Odum said.
Triad nonprofit program helps teens discuss race
The Motivation Foundation was founded in 2010 in Flint, Michigan, by Blake Odum. It started as a single college tour during a spring break when Odum was 19. He recalls he and a group of friends renting two vans and driving themselves to Atlanta, Georgia.
“We went to Atlanta to the battle of the bands. We toured Clark and Spelman and Morehouse and just had a phenomenal time. … The students said we have to make this an annual thing. Everybody should experience this, and we have been going strong ever since,” Odum said.
When Odum relocated to the Triad a few years later, he continued his work, creating partnerships with local organizations and Guilford County Schools. In 2023, the Motivational Foundation announced partnerships with Page High School and Dudley High School to offer multi-day HBCU campus visits to their students.
“I’m passionate about my work for HBCUs because I’m very big into the opportunities that HBCUs create for students of color,” Odum said. “Black and brown students who graduate from highly impacted schools who attend HBCUs increase their chance of college graduation by over 13 times.”
14 years and an official 501(c)(3) designation later, Odum is leading multiple tours a year for high school students in Michigan and North Carolina. In March 2024, 150 Black and brown students made their way to D.C., Virginia, and back to North Carolina to tour some of the top HBCUs in the country.
“I want to be the person to this next generation that I needed when I was in high school,” Odum said. “We want to be a household name. When you talk about going to college, if you’re a Black student, and you’re matriculating through an inner city school, and you’re talking about going to college and an HBCU, I want you to be able to identify the motivational foundation as a vehicle to help get you there.”
Odum says the goal in three to five years is to have up to 28 micro tours a year and expand to school districts across the country.
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