Dennis Sloan has a passion for empowering urban youth through education and a positive self-esteem. In college he coordinated his fraternity’s youth drill team which started in a housing project in Durham, NC. He used his position as president of the Student Government Association of his college to reach out to Durham’s youth through storytelling and comprehension sessions at the library and schools. After graduation he worked for the Fisher Branch YMCA (Detroit). He served as a Senior Program Director, Physical Fitness Director, Director of the After School Fitness Programs. He also created and coordinator an annual Fisher Y community parade.
After the branch’s closing, Dennis changed career directions and entered the business world as a sales/service professional. He’s had the opportunity to work with a number of multi-nationals including MCI, Ameritech Cellular, Nextel Communications, Radio Shack, General Foods and University of Phoenix. He also trained under Ron Gibel, owner of Urban Office Products, NYC’s largest minority office supplier at the time, where he learned the art of the deal.
After the death of his mother, he re-evaluated his priorities. He wanted to make a difference. In 2005, after seeing a neighborhood child twerk and rap every lyric of an inappropriate gangsta rap he engaged her. After discovering she did not know her phonics sounds and recognizing her intellectual brilliance from previous conversations with her, he got busy. If he could make reading fun he could grab her attention and he knew that if he could grab her attention he could help motivate her to read. He made a sock puppet and started tutoring her in reading. It worked! She began to build her alphabet recognition and other reading skills. Soon, many of the neighborhood children began to approach him. They asked him if his puppet could tutor them.
He began creating an educational puppet show and began having shows in his back yard. The show was cheesy. The puppets looked and were handmade, the stage was a discarded refrigerator box and the soundtrack was amateur at best. Although the shows were cheesy the children loved them. Dennis used his business training to look at the shows from the customer’s (children) perspective. He served freshly popped popcorn. He made grape Kool Aide with lemon Kool Aide ice cubes. He performed physical humor to make them laugh. So as the children sang, rapped and laughed as they ate fresh popcorn and drank Grape Kool Aid with Lemon Ice.
One day a grandparent praised Dennis after a show saying that her daughter was always dumping her son off on her to go to a party or happy hour and that she was glad her grandson could come to an educational happy hour. Father Time’s Educational Happy Hour was born. He designed the Reading 2 Win literacy program for a local non-profit that was used in the Detroit Public Schools system. With the proceeds he developed a professional puppet show.
He’s had the pleasure of performing or holding puppetry workshops for children at Boys and Girls Clubs in Southeastern Michigan, in the Detroit Public Schools system, the 2007 Michigan State Fair and the Detroit Library to name a few. In 2008 he authored his 1st children’s book- Do Not Give Up! The Barak Obama Story and Activity Book that sold well in the Detroit metro area.
One day he was walking through the Motor City Casino and heard someone shout “hey, that’s Dr. Sues in the Hood.” He turned around and recognized a vendor from an Eastside Detroit Flea Market he performed at months prior. The vendor began rapping the lyrics from If I Can Read You Can Read, a motivational rap that helps build blending skills. The vendor began telling his companion about the show and the reaction from the children. He told his companion “this is Sesame Street from the Hood.”
Dennis would always tell anyone that would listen that the educational content from his shows was effective at motivating inner-city children at risk of illiteracy to want to read and to build their reading skills. Why? Because he made it fun! This Casino encounter was the conformation that he needed to take a leap of faith.
In 2009, he committed full time to developing a series of multi-media projects that could reach children most at risk of illiteracy and that would be enjoyed by all children. That commitment would lead him to receive a Certificate of Entrepreneurship from Wayne State University’s Tech town Fast Trac program and receive a Certificate of Completion for High Scope’s Youth workers Essentials Series. He began to actively seek out cost effective graphic arts, video and editing (audio and video) training, remembering a lesson learned from Ron Gibel- “To be successful in business you have to know your business not just know how to run it.”
He also began to write. In completed, draft or development form, Dennis has created numerous multi-media projects. These include The Magic Word, The Magic Phrase, My Name Is?, Alphabean Soup, If I Can Read You Can Read, The Power of Practice and Little David’s Big Problem, a Biblical story.
After the branch’s closing, Dennis changed career directions and entered the business world as a sales/service professional. He’s had the opportunity to work with a number of multi-nationals including MCI, Ameritech Cellular, Nextel Communications, Radio Shack, General Foods and University of Phoenix. He also trained under Ron Gibel, owner of Urban Office Products, NYC’s largest minority office supplier at the time, where he learned the art of the deal.
After the death of his mother, he re-evaluated his priorities. He wanted to make a difference. In 2005, after seeing a neighborhood child twerk and rap every lyric of an inappropriate gangsta rap he engaged her. After discovering she did not know her phonics sounds and recognizing her intellectual brilliance from previous conversations with her, he got busy. If he could make reading fun he could grab her attention and he knew that if he could grab her attention he could help motivate her to read. He made a sock puppet and started tutoring her in reading. It worked! She began to build her alphabet recognition and other reading skills. Soon, many of the neighborhood children began to approach him. They asked him if his puppet could tutor them.
He began creating an educational puppet show and began having shows in his back yard. The show was cheesy. The puppets looked and were handmade, the stage was a discarded refrigerator box and the soundtrack was amateur at best. Although the shows were cheesy the children loved them. Dennis used his business training to look at the shows from the customer’s (children) perspective. He served freshly popped popcorn. He made grape Kool Aide with lemon Kool Aide ice cubes. He performed physical humor to make them laugh. So as the children sang, rapped and laughed as they ate fresh popcorn and drank Grape Kool Aid with Lemon Ice.
One day a grandparent praised Dennis after a show saying that her daughter was always dumping her son off on her to go to a party or happy hour and that she was glad her grandson could come to an educational happy hour. Father Time’s Educational Happy Hour was born. He designed the Reading 2 Win literacy program for a local non-profit that was used in the Detroit Public Schools system. With the proceeds he developed a professional puppet show.
He’s had the pleasure of performing or holding puppetry workshops for children at Boys and Girls Clubs in Southeastern Michigan, in the Detroit Public Schools system, the 2007 Michigan State Fair and the Detroit Library to name a few. In 2008 he authored his 1st children’s book- Do Not Give Up! The Barak Obama Story and Activity Book that sold well in the Detroit metro area.
One day he was walking through the Motor City Casino and heard someone shout “hey, that’s Dr. Sues in the Hood.” He turned around and recognized a vendor from an Eastside Detroit Flea Market he performed at months prior. The vendor began rapping the lyrics from If I Can Read You Can Read, a motivational rap that helps build blending skills. The vendor began telling his companion about the show and the reaction from the children. He told his companion “this is Sesame Street from the Hood.”
Dennis would always tell anyone that would listen that the educational content from his shows was effective at motivating inner-city children at risk of illiteracy to want to read and to build their reading skills. Why? Because he made it fun! This Casino encounter was the conformation that he needed to take a leap of faith.
In 2009, he committed full time to developing a series of multi-media projects that could reach children most at risk of illiteracy and that would be enjoyed by all children. That commitment would lead him to receive a Certificate of Entrepreneurship from Wayne State University’s Tech town Fast Trac program and receive a Certificate of Completion for High Scope’s Youth workers Essentials Series. He began to actively seek out cost effective graphic arts, video and editing (audio and video) training, remembering a lesson learned from Ron Gibel- “To be successful in business you have to know your business not just know how to run it.”
He also began to write. In completed, draft or development form, Dennis has created numerous multi-media projects. These include The Magic Word, The Magic Phrase, My Name Is?, Alphabean Soup, If I Can Read You Can Read, The Power of Practice and Little David’s Big Problem, a Biblical story.