Before Calajah Miller stood on stage beside Matthew Fultz as co-emcee of the 2025 100 Black Men of Indianapolis fundraising breakfast, before she earned nearly $20,000 in scholarships, before she represented Indianapolis at the national convention for 100 Black Men of America twice—there was a phone call.
Senior year. College applications stacking up. Scholarship deadlines closing in. The pressure of figuring out what comes next settling in the way it does for every student staring down graduation.
Calajah picked up the phone and called Shane Merriweather, and he answered.
He reviewed her essays, helped her track deadlines, guided her through scholarship opportunities, and followed up to check on how things were going. When the path forward felt overwhelming, he made sure she never had to walk it alone.
“I adore Mr. Merriweather,” Calajah said. “He helped me with applications, deadlines, scholarships—he was my guy.”
That phone call is the heart of this story. Not because it was extraordinary, but because at The 100, it isn’t.
A Saturday Morning that Change Things
Two years earlier, Calajah’s mother signed her up for the African American History Challenge through 100 Black Men of Indianapolis. Calajah, by her own admission, was skeptical. A Saturday morning program did not exactly top the list of how a high school student wanted to spend her weekends, but something shifted almost immediately.
Growing up in a predominantly white community, Calajah had rarely been in spaces intentionally built around Black leadership, Black history, and connection within her own community. The 100 changed that.
“The History Challenge taught me our history the way it should be told,” she said. “Not the version school decides we get.”
One program then became three. Over the next two years, Calajah completed the African American History Challenge, the Dollars and $ense Financial Literacy Program, and the Developing Future Leaders program. Along the way, she gained something far more durable than a certificate. She gained a voice and the mentors who helped her find it.
The Confidence Multiplier
When Calajah attended the national convention through the History Challenge, she found herself speaking in front of judges, attorneys, business leaders, and professionals from across the country. The student who had walked in quietly two years earlier was now leading rooms.
“It was way outside my comfort zone,” she reflected on the experience. “But they saw something in me before I saw it in myself—and they put me in rooms I wasn’t sure I belonged in yet.”
That trust didn’t stay in one room. It followed her into varsity mock trial, into Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Indiana, into the Mayor’s Youth Academy and the Indiana Fever Confidence Program. It followed her all the way to Indiana University Bloomington, where this fall she’ll begin studying criminology and criminal justice on her path toward becoming a civil rights or criminal defense attorney.
Along the way, the mentors kept showing up. One of the people who shaped her most was Mr. Murdock from the Developing Future Leaders program, who offered a presence Calajah didn’t realize she needed until she experienced it.
“I used to think being professional meant being harder than everyone else in the room,” she said. “Mr. Murdock showed me it doesn’t have to look like that. Real leadership starts somewhere quieter. It starts with knowing yourself.”
She is already thinking about who comes next. One of her first goals on campus: helping launch a Collegiate 100 chapter at IU Bloomington so The 100 can be a light in the dark for the next generation of mentees like it was for her.
The Mission of The 100
Stories like Calajah’s don’t happen by accident. They happen because mentors keep answering. Because programs keep running. Because someone, somewhere, made sure the lights stayed on.
That is the work Aundre Hogue thinks about every day.
“Many of us are drinking out of wells we didn’t dig,” said Hogue, President of 100 Black Men of Indianapolis. “The youth are part of programs we didn’t create. We owe it to the next generation to offer them the same opportunity.”
It’s why The 100 has launched The 100 Society, a new recurring giving initiative with a $100,000 goal for unrestricted program sustainability. The model is intentional: monthly contributions at levels that meet supporters where they are, building predictable funding so mentors can keep showing up without worrying about next year’s grant cycle.
Hogue still thinks about the day The 100 asked its mentees what they wanted from the men who showed up for them. The answer was disarmingly simple: just do what you say you’re going to do.
Because mentorship like Mr. Merriweather’s—the phone call answered, the essay reviewed, the deadline remembered—isn’t a moment. It’s infrastructure. And infrastructure has to be funded.
Why this Story, Why Now?
Calajah is one young woman. The 100 runs nine programs across Central Indiana, and each program is built on the same quiet architecture: trusted adults who answer the phone.
The 100 Society is how that architecture gets sustained.
Every recurring contribution of $20, $50, or $100 a month funds the next phone call, the next Saturday morning, the next student who walks in skeptical and walks out with a voice.
Sometimes the most important thing a young person can experience is someone showing up consistently enough to help them believe they belong in the room. And once they believe that, everything else begins to change.