CLEVELAND — A group of local kids skipped the shorts and T-shirts and stepped into suits to catch a show at Playhouse Square.
After a tragedy in his hometown, Dewitt Lee, the owner of St. Brian Clothiers, began using his business to give away suits to young boys and men.
"In Buffalo, where we lost 10 members of our community through racial violence, and we provided suits at that time for men to be able to attend those funerals. We realized the transformation that took place during those suit giveaways,” Lee said.
Lee was invited to Cleveland to help the boys look and feel their best for their field and teach them the importance of seeing themselves as their best selves.
“Our community has a void of having resources that give young men of all ages the chance to maintain this level of stature in dress,” Lee said.
The boys were each given a suit and lessons on how to tie ties.
“I definitely feel more confident,” said 12th grader Joseph Rowe.
“ I feel like a boss, and I feel like they'll respect us more and not look down on us since we're all dressed up,” said 7th grader Lorenzo Edwards.
Over the summer, the boys have been attending Camp Beyond the Box, a program that focuses on teaching financial literacy to young people.
“We're in the Hough community, and a lot of people from here who make it usually leave their community, and we're seeing the results of that. So, I teach kids about money so that they'll build up their community,” said Camp Director Tina Afu.
On Wednesday, they were taking their style to Playhouse Square to see the play Hamilton.
"Alexander Hamilton was a key figure, one of our founding fathers and created the banking system. So, since I’m talking to the kids about those things, I want them to see that someone who was an immigrant, someone who came from a single-mother household, someone who had nothing except for his education and his willing to write did not give up," Afu said.
