Dekunle Somade
Dekunle began working in community development in 2008 when he became director of the Prison-to-College Pipeline program, a non-profit organization that provided arts-based, mentoring and tutoring services to the incarcerated youth detained at New Beginnings Detention Center, a facility located just outside of his hometown of Washington, D.C. Dekunle went on to attend graduate school at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and afterward founded Cry Baby a community events organization that provides live event programming to neighborhoods in Brooklyn, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, and Baltimore. Dekunle is an avid reader and writer, and since joining Reading Partners has put his passion for literacy to work by finding new ways for the program to reach its fundraising goals.