Help A Small Cheerleading Gym Get on Their Feet

My name is Alex Harper, and I am a 26-year-old single mom to a beautiful son. Growing up, cheerleading quickly became my passion. I started cheerleading when I was 12, all the way to the age of 20, until I hurt my back in a cheerleading injury. After I went through my injury, I coached a middle school team until I got pregnant with my son and had to stop because of complications with my pregnancy. Living in a predominantly white area, I was always known as the "black girl" on that one team or the "black girl" who does the flips. For a long time, I had to deal with racism and people being interested in being my friend because I was black. In my sophomore year of high school, I started all-star cheer, and I found somewhere where I felt safe and accepted even though there was a small group of black girls on the team. I thought I knew what diversity was until I went to an HBCU for my undergrad, where I had what I call a culture shock because I had never been around so many people who looked like me. Going to college in the city made me realize that young black girls don't have an outlet like I did because the closest all-star cheerleading gym is more than 30 minutes away, and inner-city kids have no access to it. I want to give these young black girls an outlet where they can use the stereotypes society puts on them and make them something powerful through the sport of cheerleading.