Rooted & Resourced:

Funding Melanin & Milkshakes

Melanin & Milkshakes exists to cultivate healing, confidence, and belonging for Black and Brown girls ages 12–19 through creative expression, community building, and culturally rooted storytelling. We create intentional cohort spaces where young people develop their voices, strengthen literacy skills, and deepen their sense of identity and self-worth through writing, dialogue, and shared experience.

We have hosted cohorts in Richmond, Oakland, and San Francisco, serving Black and Brown girls across the Bay Area. Each cohort is designed to strengthen literacy, confidence, and connection through creative workshops grounded in culture, reflection, and storytelling.

We are currently raising $4,000 to support the next cohort of Melanin & Milkshakes. These funds directly support:

• Weekly meals and refreshments for participants
• Self-care boxes that support reflection and wellness
• Creative materials for writing and workshop activities
• Custom crewnecks honoring each participant’s journey
• Program facilitation and cohort-based experiences

This program creates consistent, structured spaces where Black and Brown girls are supported in showing up fully, building community, and developing their voices through guided creative practice.

Within each cohort, participants engage in writing-based workshops that strengthen core literacy skills including narrative development, critical thinking, reflective writing, and verbal articulation. Through poetry and personal storytelling, students learn how to organize their thoughts, refine their voice, and communicate lived experience with clarity and confidence.

Beyond literacy development, Melanin & Milkshakes functions as a culturally responsive learning environment that strengthens social-emotional growth. Participants practice vulnerability, peer dialogue, active listening, and collaborative reflection, skills that directly translate into improved classroom engagement, leadership development, and academic confidence.

For many students, this is one of the only spaces where their identities are centered rather than managed or minimized. The program builds belonging alongside skill-building, reinforcing the connection between self-expression, academic success, and long-term personal development.

Your contribution makes it possible for these spaces to exist in a sustained and accessible way for Black and Brown girls who deserve consistent, high-quality, affirming educational experiences. Funding this goal means two full cohorts of young people will have a space to be seen, heard, and supported over the course of ten weeks.

Your support directly covers essential program costs that shape each cohort experience: 

• $20/month helps sustain the foundation of Melanin & Milkshakes by contributing to weekly meals, creative materials, and the ongoing care needed to maintain consistent, high-quality cohort programming for Black and Brown girls.
• $50/month deepens the impact of each cohort by supporting meals, self-care and healing boxes, and expanded creative materials that nurture both emotional wellbeing and academic growth throughout the 10-week experience.
• $100/month helps fully sustain cohort programming by supporting facilitation, guest artists, and culturally responsive workshops, ensuring each 10-week cycle is rich with high-quality, identity-affirming learning experiences.

Each contribution directly translates into a lived experience for a young person, from the meal they share in community, to the materials they use to write their story, to retreats and outside enrichment experiences that expand learning beyond the classroom, to the final crewneck they receive as a marker of their journey and growth.