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A Collective of Excellence, Inc. 501(c)3
Building community through creativity, culture, education, and collective impact.
ACE (A Collective of Excellence) is a nonprofit ecosystem dedicated to helping people connect, create, and grow through shared experiences, creative practice, cultural engagement, and community leadership. Through festivals, educational programs, artistic collaborations, and community initiatives, ACE creates pathways for people to discover opportunity, build relationships, and contribute to something larger than themselves.
What began as a student-centered cultural celebration has evolved into a growing network of artists, educators, entrepreneurs, students, and community members united by a shared belief: meaningful transformation happens when people have opportunities to belong, contribute, and build something larger than themselves.
My role has included founder, creative director, program designer, facilitator, fundraiser, community builder, and strategic leader.
An Excellent Opportunity
An Excellent Opportunity
While serving as Choral Director at Western Guilford High School, I witnessed students navigating questions of culture, belonging, identity, and representation through music.
One particular conversation emerged while preparing repertoire for Black History Month. Students expressed concerns about cultural ownership, authenticity, and who should be entrusted to tell certain stories through music. Beneath the conversation was a deeper challenge: people wanted opportunities to honor one another’s experiences while still feeling seen themselves.
At the same time, I was witnessing the power of community-centered music making. Students consistently demonstrated that the strongest moments were not simply performances—they were moments of connection.
The question became:
How might creativity become a vehicle for helping people better understand themselves and one another?
The Beginning: ACOBE
The Beginning: ACOBE
In response, I launched ACOBE (A Celebration of Black Excellence).
The initial vision was straightforward: create a community concert experience where students and community members could celebrate Black excellence through music, culture, storytelling.
The first ACOBE brought together students, educators, and community members from across the Triad, NC showcasing different performance art disciplines across the Black diaspora; closing with collaborative mass choir experience.
What surprised me was not the performance itself. It was what happened around the performance.People were building relationships. Students were finding confidence and voice. Community members were discovering shared experiences. The event was functioning as a catalyst for connection in ways none of us had anticipated.
ACOBE quickly grew beyond its original purpose.
Growth Through Community
Growth Through Community
Over the next several years, participation expanded through larger choir experiences, new partnerships, and deeper community engagement.
What began as a single event evolved into an ongoing effort to create spaces where people could explore thier identity, celebrate culture, build relationships, and participate in something meaningful together.
The project became increasingly interdisciplinary, drawing connections between education, creativity, leadership, cultural development, and community engagement.
While music remained an important vehicle, the work itself was becoming much larger than music.
The Pandemic Pivot & The Nourishment Cycle
The Pandemic Pivot & The Nourishment Cycle
In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced communities everywhere to rethink how connection could happen.
Rather than pause the work, ACOBE evolved into a virtual festival experience that connected artists, educators, students, and community members across multiple states.
During this period, I worked closely with Devereaux Nash to reflect on the deeper patterns emerging through the experiences we were facilitating.
Together, we explored questions surrounding identity, creativity, belonging, personal growth, and community transformation. Through observation, reflection, research, and lived experience, we began recognizing a recurring developmental journey present throughout many of the stories and experiences we encountered.
Those reflections ultimately led to the development of the Nourishment Cycle.
The Nourishment Cycle became a framework for understanding how individuals and communities grow through intentional engagement, creativity, connection, and shared purpose. - Now serves as ACE Core framework and Philosophy
The ACE Ecosystem
The ACE Ecosystem
In 2023, ACE was established as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, expanding the work beyond a single event into a year-round interconnected ecosystem that supports individuals, organizations, artists, educators, entrepreneurs, and community leaders through shared opportunities, collaboration, and collective growth.
A central principle of ACE is that people engage differently. Some participate through events. Others through leadership, partnerships, artistic collaboration, education, entrepreneurship, or service. The ecosystem is designed to create multiple pathways for people to contribute, grow, and build meaningful relationships.
At its core, ACE exists to cultivate excellence—not as a destination, but as a lifelong practice of growth, service, creativity, and community.
ACE Signature Initiatives
ACE Signature Initiatives
ACE Spirit Week Festival is the flagship public expression of the ACE ecosystem, bringing together artists, educators, entrepreneurs, students, organizations, and community members through a shared celebration of creativity, culture, education, and excellence.
Originally emerging from the growth of ACOBE and the broader ACE vision, Spirit Week was designed to create opportunities for connection, collaboration, and community impact across disciplines. Through performances, workshops, networking experiences, cultural programming, educational sessions, volunteer initiatives, and community celebrations, the festival serves as a gathering place for individuals and organizations working to build a stronger and more connected community.
More than a festival, Spirit Week functions as a living demonstration of the ACE philosophy—creating spaces where nourish thier excellence through learning, building, contributing, and growing together. By bringing diverse communities into conversation and collaboration, the festival transforms creativity into a catalyst for belonging, opportunity, and collective impact.
ACOBE
ACOBE
ACOBE is the founding initiative that ultimately led to the creation of ACE. Originally developed as a cultural celebration centered on the richness, diversity, and excellence of the Black diaspora, ACOBE created opportunities for students, educators, artists, and community members to engage through music, storytelling, service, and cultural exchange.
While ACE has grown into a broader ecosystem, ACOBE remains an important part of its foundation and continues to influence the organization’s commitment to representation, belonging, and community-centered celebration.
CHROMATICA
CHROMATICA
CHROMATICA serves as ACE’s creative collective and artistic development initiative. Created to bring together artists, educators, students, and creators across disciplines, CHROMATICA provides opportunities for collaborative music-making, artistic exploration, performance, and creative growth.
Rooted in the belief that creativity thrives in community, CHROMATICA functions as a space where individuals can experiment, develop their craft, share ideas, and create meaningful work alongside others. Through collaborative projects, performances, recordings, and educational experiences, participants are encouraged to engage with creativity as both a personal practice and a collective experience.
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