Ask Robin Coleman what her son Garland would be doing if he hadn’t found 100 Black Men of Indianapolis, and she does not hesitate:
“He’d be playing video games.”
She says it warmly—Garland is good at them, good enough that he once considered pursuing a gaming scholarship for college. But there is something underneath the answer that matters. Garland is a gifted student with a quiet personality, a “gentle giant,” as his mother describes him. He could have spent his high school years behind a screen. Instead, he spent them in rooms full of mentors, financial portfolios, and rites of passage that have reshaped what he believes is possible for his life.
Today, Garland is preparing for college to study interior architecture design, with a serious interest in finance as a backup major, day trading as a hobby, and a potential internship lined up with one of the top architects in the country.
None of that was on his radar five years ago.
A Summer Academy, a Small Circle, a Different Door
Garland’s journey with The 100 began in the sixth grade, when Robin enrolled him in the organization’s summer academy. He was reluctant at first, most kids that age are. But his friends from The Oaks Academy were going, and that was enough to get him in the door.
What he found on the other side of that door changed the trajectory of his life.
Over the years that followed, Garland completed the summer academy, the Junior Investments program, the Dollars and $ence Financial Literacy Program, and the Beautillion Militaire Scholarship Program—a rites-of-passage program that holds a particular kind of weight inside The 100 community.
“I kept showing up for the connections,” Garland said. “The ones that opened doors to school and scholarships, the ones that pushed me out of my comfort zone, and the ones that helped me see a future I didn’t know I could have.”
That last part matters. Garland describes himself as someone with a small circle. The 100 widened it, and as the circle widened, so did he.
“When I was younger, I wouldn’t talk to anybody,” he said. “But going through the programs, I learned that communication and confidence are key to life. The first time I presented in front of a big room, I was nervous, but with practice, I walked in with a big smile.”
His mother saw it happen in real time.
“He’s very much a gentle giant, kind of shy, and soft-spoken most of the time,” Robin said. “But when he’s around those men, he gets up, he does presentations, he asserts himself. He carries himself like a man. That’s been wonderful to watch.”
A Financial Education Right on Time
The Junior Investments program lit something in Garland that surprised everyone, including him. He started investing as a hobby. He started watching the markets. He started thinking about stocks, bonds, Bitcoin—not as abstractions, but as tools.
For Robin, the timing was almost providential:
“I had actually lost my income at the time and wasn’t able to sit down and teach him budgeting the way I wanted to,” she said. “Having this program step in and teach him what I couldn’t teach him hands-on—that was everything. I told him, you have to get in this financial literacy piece. They’re going to give you what I can’t give you right now.”
The 100’s programs did more than fill a gap. They handed Garland a vocabulary for a future he is still actively shaping. He’s now considering minoring in finance alongside his architecture degree, because as his mother put it, the skills you’ll use, you can use anywhere.
The Beautillion: A Moment for the Entire Family
If the financial literacy program opened Garland’s mind, the Beautillion opened something deeper—a connection to the organization, to its legacy, and to the long line of young men who had walked this path before him.
The Beautillion is a months-long rites-of-passage program that culminates in a formal ceremony where young men are presented to their community as the next generation of Black leadership. For Robin and Garland, the moment had been years in the making. They had attended a friend’s Beautillion scholarship dinner years earlier and walked out of it with a quiet promise: someday, we’ll be next.
“It was so much more than I expected,” Robin said. “The commitment was one thing. But what we got out of it was worth every hour, every sacrifice, every fundraiser. To dance with my son, to see us in a grown-up kind of way—it was beautiful. I don’t even know how to put it into words.”
Then there was her brother.
Garland’s father works evenings and couldn’t always be present, so Robin’s brother stepped in to stand as Garland’s male support throughout the program. He filmed the Beautillion rehearsals. He filmed the ceremony itself. And both times, he did so with tears in his eyes.
“He couldn’t figure out his emotions at first,” Robin said. “Then he told me, I realized it’s because I didn’t get to do this stuff with my mother. Watching you and Garland do things we never got to experience—it just hit me.”
That uncle ended up bestowing the Kente cloth on Garland as part of his rite of passage—a moment that meant everything to a man deeply connected to his ancestral roots. The experience didn’t just transform Garland. It rippled backward through the family, sparking new conversations between Robin’s brother and their mother about what they had missed, and what they still have time to build.
That is what mentorship at The 100 does when it works. It does not stop at the student.
A Circle that Keeps Widening
What makes Garland’s story particularly striking is who has been in his corner from the very beginning.
Aundre Hogue—now President of 100 Black Men of Indianapolis—was one of Garland’s mentors back in elementary school. Their families went to school together. That was more than a decade ago, and Aundre never left.
He has watched Garland grow from a quiet sixth-grader into a young man preparing for college. And as Garland weighs his next steps, Aundre is still there—already talking with Robin about connecting Garland to a finance internship if that becomes the path he wants to walk.
“The long-term commitment to stay in his life as he becomes a man—that’s really important to me,” Robin said. “That’s not something you can find just anywhere.”
This is what makes The 100 different. The relationships do not expire when the program ends. They follow students into college, into careers, into the moments where they need someone to make a phone call on their behalf.
When asked what he would tell other young people who might rather stay home with their controllers than spend Saturdays in a program, Garland’s answer was simple and clear:
“Take a break from the screen. Go out, expand your circle, expand what you want to do in life. Your career. Think about it. Get out in the world. It won’t always be like it is right now.”
Spoken like someone who has already lived the proof.
Why this Story, Why Now?
Garland is one young man. The 100 runs nine programs across Central Indiana, and each is built on the same foundation: trusted adults who do not leave.
The 100 Society—a new recurring giving initiative with a $100,000 goal for unrestricted program sustainability—is how that foundation gets reinforced. Monthly contributions at levels that meet supporters where they are, building predictable funding so the mentors who shaped Garland can keep showing up for the next student who walks in reluctantly and walks out remade.
Because somewhere in Indianapolis right now, there is another sixth grader who would rather be playing video games. The 100 is the reason he might one day take a break from the screen, expand his circle, and find a future he didn’t know was waiting for him.