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Tony Hopson Sr. was fed up. Over and over, he kept seeing Black students not being picked for basketball camps that were predominantly white. A star player who helped lead Jefferson High School to a state championship in 1972, Hopson knew the sport could be empowering. So he organized a camp himself.
Hopson never imagined that the weeklong basketball camp he started in 1981 would transform into Self Enhancement Inc. Today, the organization offers services to about 17,000 Portland kids, most of them Black, from academic achievement to extracurricular classes and building relationships. SEI also employs 225 people and has an annual budget of $32 million.
For Hopson, watching the nonprofit bloom was “lovely, wonderful and scary all at the same time.”
There were many challenges along the way. Hopson fought back the threatened closure of Jefferson High in 2010 and worked to hold Portland Public Schools accountable for achievement gaps between white students and students of color. He says there’s still a lot of work to be done on that issue.
But SEI has touched thousands of lives. In Portland, one of the whitest cities in the U.S., Hopson says, SEI instills the confidence that students of color need to achieve their dreams. “It’s much easier to believe you can do something if you see people who look like you doing it,” he says.
Changing the guard: In August, Hopson stepped down as CEO and handed over the reins of SEI to Trent Aldridge. Hopson is optimistic the nonprofit can increase its reach in the coming years: Its alumni network is growing rapidly. He also hopes SEI will take advantage of virtual platforms to connect with Black kids in rural parts of the state who might not be able to find community around them.
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