“Giftedness Is Just Access in Disguise”: Lessons in Flourishing Together

 
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“Giftedness Is Just Access in Disguise”: Lessons in Flourishing Together

Jee-Hoon Krska, Founder/Executive Director, Keys 2 Success, Newark, New Jersey, USA

11-05-2025

Group class with individualized attention from Urban Fellows. Photo: Keys 2 Success.

Newark, New Jersey, in the U.S., is a proud city with a venerable cultural history. But its poverty rate is among the highest in the country. In 2016, Newark’s public schools had been without arts education for over two decades. The Keys 2 Success program was founded to fill that gap by bringing quality music instruction directly to students who needed it most.

We set up digital keyboards in public housing community rooms, began to provide professional instruction, and took steps to eliminate the transportation and cost barriers that keep so many talented young people from accessing the arts. Nine years later, what began as free piano lessons has grown into a comprehensive youth development program serving hundreds of students across Newark’s most underserved neighborhoods—a community where students become teachers, families become advocates, and music becomes a catalyst for transformation.

The summer of 2025 brought a harsh financial reality. Like so many nonprofits in the United States this year, we lost more than 50% in foundation funding—money we’d counted on to hire adult teachers for our summer programming. We couldn’t bring in the experienced instructors who had anchored our summer camps in previous years.

This loss created an unexpected void that my teaching team and I didn’t know how to fill. To our surprise, our Urban Fellows and Junior Fellows—a group of our older and emerging student leaders—stepped up to fill the void.

Weekly community fairs always start with Urban Fellows and Junior Fellows playing games with the neighborhood children. Photo: Keys 2 Success.

This summer, we witnessed remarkable transformations among our young leaders. Onya—who started with our program as a shy first-grader ten years ago—now stands confidently in front of groups, teaching piano with the poise of a seasoned educator. Fourteen-year-old Kalyani, once irregular in her attendance, became a Junior Fellow after seeing other youth leaders in action. She now helps lead activities, and she practices seriously—inspiring her younger brother to join classes regularly, too. Twelve-year-old Emely bridges communities at our public housing site by connecting with Spanish-speaking families in their native language. She helps set up classes, mentors younger students, and makes learning music contagious among her peers. Together, our Urban Fellows and Junior Fellows ran entire programs with skills that amazed even veteran teachers.

These young student leaders were stepping up in response to a crisis. But this was also the natural result of years of leadership development finally revealing its power. When we needed teachers, our Urban Fellows took charge because they saw their own futures tied to the program’s success. When we needed community outreach, these Newark teenagers connected with their peers in ways no adult ever could.

Each connection creates another. When Onya earns her Urban Fellow paycheck, that money helps her family with household expenses. When she teaches younger children at Hyatt Court, a local housing development, their mothers get crucial support. When those mothers host concerts in their community room, their neighbors discover live music for the first time and start asking about lessons for their own kids. Each connection creates another, spreading opportunity organically through existing networks.

Youth-led performances in the community garden draw audiences of all ages. Photo: Keys 2 Success.

The Garden of Life—a community garden and gathering space in Newark’s South Ward—became another hub for this kind of organic connection when we started hosting outdoor classes there three summers ago. Through the Garden, we met our city’s South Ward Police Chief and also “Ms. Wander,” a lifelong South Ward resident and community activist who later joined our board. This summer, these connections led to Keys 2 Success hosting mini-fairs at police precincts and participating in weekly outreach events throughout Newark.

This is how healthy neighborhoods work: when you add something that truly serves, everything flourishes together. Our focus on the 99% creates widespread transformation instead of isolated success stories. This is the difference between flower arrangements and gardens.

Our work at Keys 2 Success is still in its infancy, but the strength of its roots is already showing. Over the past years, we’ve navigated countless barriers in order to consistently stay with our children and provide what they need to in order to grow. They are flourishing in ways that prove that “giftedness” is often just access in disguise.

This summer, what initially felt like a loss became a revelation: our students weren’t just learning music; they were becoming the teachers, the ambassadors, the very foundation that will carry Keys 2 Success forward, regardless of what challenges come next.

This summer, our youth didn’t just save our program. They proved it was already theirs. Let’s invest in our youth and watch leaders multiply.

Arts Access, Arts Funding Crisis, bilingual education, Collective Impact, Community Empowerment, Community Outreach, Community Transformation, Digital Keyboards, Educational Equity, Family Engagement, Garden Of Life, Giftedness And Access, Grassroots Change, Inclusive Education, Investing In Youth, Jee-Hoon Krska, Junior Fellows, Keys 2 Success, leadership development, Music and Community, Music Education, Music for Social Change, Neighborhood Revitalization, Newark New Jersey, Nonprofit Resilience, November 2025, Organic Growth, Piano Instruction, Police Partnership, Public Housing Programs, Social Impact through Music, South Ward Newark, Spanish Speaking Families, Student Empowerment, Student Mentorship, underserved communities, Urban Fellows, Youth Ambassadors, youth development, Youth Leadership

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