Some applaud the so-called water boys for their drive, but their efforts sometimes frustrate Atlanta residents, lawmakers, and drivers alike.
Youth nonprofit Helping Empower Youth (HEY!), with assistance from the city of Atlanta, has created a hydration program, HEY! Hydrate!, designed to help youth learn small business skills.
Located between the Peachtree Center MARTA station and the Georgia Pacific building on Peachtree Rd., the HEY! Hydrate! hydration station is a kiosk where young Black men in the program can sell private-label water bottles to patrons walking down the street.
“Our aim is to help lessen some of the effects of poverty that a lot of these young men are experiencing and their ability to obtain part-time jobs and even some of the challenges their families see,” said KaCey Venning, co-founder and Executive Director of HEY!
When schools were forced to go into remote learning at the height of the pandemic, some students’ routines of participating in after-school activities came to a screeching halt and their living conditions at home made it difficult to shelter in place.
With the extra time on their hands, some of the Black male students were worried that they would face peer pressure to join a gang leading them to go down a path that they knew would lead them to jail, prison or death.
As an alternative to making those bad decisions, some of them decided to sell water on street corners during the daytime and people began to call them the “water boys.”
But not everyone was happy with the situation. Hundreds of complaints were reported to the city about the boys’ intrusive sales tactics — like climbing on top of cars or demanding more money — that law enforcement wanted to utilize banishment tactics and arrest the boys’ parents or legal guardians for their actions.
Venning and HEY! Hydrate! has begun working with some water boys to improve their sales routines and encouraging others to call them “water entrepreneurs” to change their reputation and the narrative of how they’re perceived in society.
“Folks are so quick to villainize all of our Black male youth because of the actions that a few have taken,” Venning said.
Earlier this year, HEY! created a summer intensive program to teach teens professional workforce training and help them generate revenue. The one-month program included creating an LLC or sole proprietorship and helped them execute their ideas for their small business.
“They come to us with individual ideas. We do our best to help them move those ideas forward.” Venning said. “We use HEY! Hydrate! as an in-house incubator so they have something tangible to work through those principles.”
The city reported that since the kiosk was installed in June this year, complaints about the water entrepreneurs have decreased by 43 percent.
Venning told SaportaReport that one water entrepreneur who has gone through the HEY! Hydrate training has been able to purchase a car and make a living wage.
“If we want to support their entrepreneurial spirit, then we have to do things that are entrepreneurial in nature and not just get them ready to go to work for someone else,” Venning said, adding, “The best thing to do is to speak positively of the hope for our youth versus engaging in some of the negative conversations we hear about them,”
She also says that the best way to support these young entrepreneurs is to volunteer or donate to organizations that work with youth to create a proactive community for Atlanta residents.
HEY! Hydrate! Is looking for a Kiosk Support Associate to manage the facility. To get find the job description click here to learn more.
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