Sootchy Charitable Foundation

Sootchy Charitable Foundation At Sootchy, we are driven by a steadfast mission to eradicate long-term poverty in America.

Our unwavering commitment is centered on empowering underserved and underrepresented American families by forging connections to access and opportunities that were previously hidden from view. We believe that by breaking down barriers and illuminating pathways, we can create a brighter, more equitable future for all, where every family has the chance to thrive and realize their full potential.

09/03/2026

David Adefeso, our CEO and founder, shared the #1 secret to escaping poverty — and the honest thing about it is that it isn't a secret at all.

It's ownership. Income covers the month you're in. Ownership covers the ones you won't be there for.

The reason it feels hidden is that nobody's paid to tell you. There's no commission in "keep it simple, keep it consistent, own something." Which is exactly why we say it out loud. 📈

09/02/2026

"Bad credit" sounds like a character flaw. It isn't. It's a record of a season you were probably never taught to navigate.

Sootchylearningexchange team member Stacie Fujii walked through how to fix a past that's still costing you — and Mayor DeShawn Williams s of Urbana, Illinois, was right there taking it in, because a city full of people paying a penalty rate is a city leaving money on the table.

Your report is a receipt, not a verdict. Receipts can be disputed. 🧾

09/01/2026

You inherited a recipe, a laugh, a way of standing in the kitchen — and a nervous system that flinches when the balance drops below a certain number. 🧠

Our CEO and founder David Adefeso said the quiet part at the African American Mayors Association Annual Conference (): you can hand somebody a perfect spreadsheet and it won't move them, because the math was never the problem. The problem is that somebody's grandmother learned money was a thing that gets taken, and that lesson made it down the family line intact.

Healing isn't the soft part of this work. It's step one. You can't build on ground you're still afraid of.

Fix the feeling. Then the numbers hold. 💙

📍 Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, Washington, DC

08/31/2026

Sootchylearningexchange team member Stacie Fujii put it plainly: do you buy 200 pairs of Nike tennis shoes, or do you buy Nike stock?

Twenty years of receipts say the shoes wore out and the ownership multiplied — roughly 4x, even with Nike sitting at a 12-year low right now. That's not a stock tip. That's a lesson about which side of the transaction you're standing on.

Financial literacy is knowing what's in your toolbox. And making money for yourself, in a world that keeps handing you reasons not to, is an act of resilience.

Watch the clip. 👟

08/28/2026

People love to talk about the education funding gap. Fewer people bring a plan to city council with a number attached.

David Adefeso laid ours out: begin with 3,000 children — kids attending school in the city, or whose parents live here — and set each of them up with a higher education fund. That money can go toward college, trade school, buying a first home, or starting a business.

We're not asking these kids to dream smaller. We're making sure somebody funded the dream before they got there. 🎓

08/27/2026

Ask a parent why they haven't started saving for college and you'll get the same answer in every zip code — there's nothing left at the end of the month.

The fix David Adefeso brought to city council is simple: let employers help fund a child's higher education fund the same way they help fund a 401K. Small, automatic, out of payroll, building for years before that first tuition bill shows up.

We didn't need a new idea. We needed to point an old one at the right people. 🎓

08/26/2026

There's a difference between talking at a community and connecting with one.

Craig Smith and David Adefeso describe it the same way: you stay quiet long enough for people to open up and tell you what they're really carrying, and you take the issue to heart the way they feel it — not the tidy version that fits on a slide.

Do that first, and the solution actually fits the people it was built for. ❤️

08/25/2026

Craig Smith doesn't soften it. He grew up in Los Angeles and says he was born into a war — he was shot at eight years old, at an age when the biggest thing you should be dodging is homework.

What he did next is the part worth sitting with. He went looking for peace, for purpose, for something to love — and that search took him to the NBA. Now he stands in front of city councils as an ambassador for the community that raised him, telling kids the road out exists and somebody should be funding it. 🏀❤️

08/24/2026

Here's a question worth sitting with: if a lawyer — educated, employed, doing everything "right" — still can't figure out how to save for his kid's college, what exactly is everybody else supposed to do?

Because that's not a discipline problem. That's not a "you should've budgeted better" problem. That's a system that was never built with regular families in mind.

Tuition keeps climbing. Wages don't. And the tools that actually help you get ahead have historically been explained to some people and hidden from everybody else.

Sootchy exists to close that gap. Open a higher education fund for your child in minutes, start with whatever you've got, and let grandparents, aunties, uncles and family friends contribute directly — no group chat guilt trips required.

Your child's future shouldn't depend on whether somebody in your family happened to know the right stuff. 🎓

08/20/2026

Ask a hundred parents if they want their kid to go to college. All hundred say yes. Ask how many have a higher education fund started — watch the room go quiet.

That gap isn't a parenting problem. It's a design problem. The tools were built for people who already had money, already had an advisor, already knew the language.

Sootchy is here to close that gap. Start with what you have, and let time do the heavy lifting. 🎓

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Novi, MI

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