Jessi Grant
Jessi and her cat, Hendrix
Jessi Grant is SCORES Communications Manager. In our latest conversation, we talked to Jessi about growing up outside Chicago, her greatest learnings from previous jobs, and the freedom writing poetry gives SCORES poet-athletes.
1. Where did you grow up, and how did that shape you?
I grew up outside of Chicago, in the northwest suburbs—Wheeling, Palatine, Rolling Meadows, and then Arlington Heights from middle school on. Being so close to the city really influenced me. Chicago has so much culture and diversity, and just being exposed to that early made me really curious about the world. Even though I was in the suburbs, I always knew there was so much more out there. I knew I wanted to be in a city surrounded by art, culture, and music. Living close to Chicago gave me a bigger worldview.
When I was in high school, my friends and I would take the Metra train downtown and then the Red Line up to Belmont. We’d hang out in Lakeview, around Belmont and Clark, where there were all these punk rock and vintage kind of shops back then. We’d just walk around, see what we came across, and feel grown up. The Bean went up when I was in high school, so we’d go there and take selfies.
2. What did you study in college, and how did that connect to what you’re doing now?
I went to the University of Illinois Chicago. I applied to a bunch of schools—Boston University, even California College of the Arts here in Oakland, but I ended up staying close to home. I was the first kid and first grandchild, and my family was pretty overprotective, so staying nearby just felt like the right choice.
I started in the art school because I wanted to do photography, but I got nervous about committing, and ended up switching majors a few times before landing on Gender and Women’s Studies. That major ended up being really broad. I got to take art history classes, political and social sciences, and even a biology class, so it was good for me because I got to try a little bit of everything.
Now, I’m back studying photography at City College of San Francisco, working toward a certificate in reportage photography, which is basically photojournalism. I only take one or two classes a semester because of work, but I love it. The classes are free, which is incredible, and the teachers are amazing. My current professor is actually the photo editor at Mother Jones. He’s really focused on storytelling through photos, so that’s another thing I feel I can bring to SCORES—how to use photos to tell our story.
3. Before SCORES, you worked at a few other nonprofits. What experiences have stuck with you most?
One of the first places I worked was a program called AVID at Wheeling High School. It was designed for students who were kind of “in the middle”, not struggling, but not getting extra attention either. Many were first-generation college students from immigrant families. We worked with them on their homework, college applications, and self-confidence. It reminded me a lot of SCORES because it was about seeing potential in students who sometimes get overlooked.
And before coming to SCORES, I worked for five years for The Chicago Lighthouse, which primarily works with communities who are blind, visually impaired, or have disabilities. Their programs include a therapeutic day school, a low-vision clinic with psychological services, and an employment program. They also do research, including clinical trials and treatments to help prevent blindness and ways to actually restore sight through surgery.
I worked alongside colleagues who were blind and learned how they navigated everything. One of my coworkers, Sandy, went to U of I Urbana-Champaign for journalism and now runs the radio station at The Chicago Lighthouse. They have a segment called The Disability Minute, where they talk about different issues facing the disability community in Chicago and beyond. They made the whole station accessible so that she can completely run it herself as someone who’s blind, which is just really cool.
What I took from that job was how we talked about the people our organization is serving. We never wanted to make people seem like victims. It was more about recognizing that the people our mission serves have talents and aspirations, but they often just haven’t had the opportunity or resources to pursue them.
So the language we used really mattered. We were careful not to put ourselves in a position of power over anyone. That was really important. I think I learned a lot from that, how to present people’s stories with respect and dignity.
4. What’s been your biggest delight in working with SCORES?
Going to my first poetry slam and seeing the kids speak with such confidence, how they could make the audience laugh, how they look at the world, how creatively they express themselves–that was definitely my biggest delight.
I think the fact that poetry is not as rigid is great. It can have more of an unstructured, free-flowing format. When I was in school, writing was very structured. You had your essay with your thesis statement, the body, and then the conclusion that wraps back to the intro. There were rules you had to follow. With poetry, you can start with more of a blank canvas. There aren’t as many rules, and I think that allows kids to not feel bound by anything; they can think through their ideas more freely and express themselves. I think the performance aspect of poetry slams is really cool, too. It helps kids claim ownership over their words and experiences, which helps build confidence. I think it’s really great!
If you could share any wisdom with your younger self, your SCORES kid-aged self, what would it be?
That’s a hard question. I think I’d say, trust yourself and try not to compare yourself or make yourself smaller for others. As a kid, I really struggled with self-confidence and trying to fit in. And in some ways, I would do things to try to fit in or make friends. But it would have been a lot easier not to do that, and to just trust myself. Stay true to yourself is my biggest advice.
To read more Five Questions With conversations, go here.
