The mission of 1Hood Media is to build liberated communities through art, education and social justice.
Founded in 2005, Dress for Success Pittsburgh was established to empower women to become self-sufficient and exit poverty. From our beginnings in a church basement serving 69 women the first year, we have grown to four branches serving five SW Pennsylvania counties and working with over 150 referral partners. Today, we provide clothing and employment readiness support to women across the region.
While we may be best known for providing suits and professional clothing to women, we are first and foremost an anti-poverty organization that focuses on providing a continuum of support and opportunities for vulnerable, low-income women to compete, advance, and support themselves and their families without the need to rely on public assistance.
We achieve our mission through providing suiting and uniform items for women. Women are referred to us who are currently interviewing or who have secured work and need appropriate clothing items. The women we serve work with suiting specialists to choose appropriate clothing for their needs. Additionally, during these consultations, women are provided with interview preparation skills.
Toyz Electronics is an Ed-tech company focused on building a more diverse workforce for the future. We have an App that empowers diverse and disadvantaged students to become the Superhero versions of themselves and get to select Universities like Carnegie Mellon and MIT or pathway to sustainable careers in creative, hardware, software, manufacturing, or entrepreneurship. It’s based on our Black Superhero Father and Son co-founder duo. Father Damola Idowu enrolled at Syracuse University at 16 studying Mechanical Engineering and Economics. Son Wole Idowu enrolled at Carnegie Mellon University at 15 studying Electrical and Computer Engineering. We are based at the Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University.