It was 2019 when Abiodun Henderson had a chance conversation with Dr. Janelle Williams and Tené Traylor, the co-founders of Kindred Futures. At the time, Henderson – who is founder and CEO of The Come Up Project – was just three years into building out the multi-faceted organization based in Atlanta that provides a ‘come-up’ by developing the current and potential skill set of participants, while offering a pipeline into a viable career. She was betwixt and between in just about every area of her life except her community work. In that aspect, she was on the brink of a breakthrough. 

“I’m an out-in-the-street community organizer,” Henderson says reflecting of the encounter that inspired her to put her ideas on paper. “I told them, ‘we would love to have y’all support and this is what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to work our own businesses, while educating young people … catching them up because of the gap that the crack cocaine era kind of created in the transfer of knowledge between generations.’”

Henderson created The Come Up Project in 2016 and immediately launched its first program Gangsters to Growers – providing employment opportunities to formerly incarcerated people in marginalized communities. At-promise youth and formerly incarcerated individuals receive paid entrepreneurial internships, are mentored by local farmers, learn to plant, harvest, and vend produce to local restaurants and at a street side farmer’s market, and gain an understanding of how to re-apply and transfer their current skill sets into the legitimate economy. By providing a living wage stipend to participants, the program is also designed to empower individuals with past criminal records, who are largely barred from jobs that would pay a livable wage, to amass seed money for their business venture.

Fiercely independent herself, Henderson knows what it’s like to need support after having lost her job and home near the West End in 2012. When she met Williams and Traylor, she had been a community activist in SW Atlanta running grassroots programs, farming and empowering those living in traditionally underserved communities. Following the conversation with Kindred, a friend assisted her in formulating a proposal which led to seed funding from Kindred Futures. 

The timing was not only optimal for the business concept she’d been cultivating but was an unexpected personal gesture of support from true community advocates. 

“You know, they put $12,000 into that grant just for me to have a salary,” Henderson says. “Prior to that, we were getting like, 25,000 a year. We had WorkSource paying our young people. And one year we only had $10,000 and thought – as long as the youth are getting paid, we going to do this program.” 

While the organization was getting their fair share of press, Henderson was Ubering youth to farms because she no longer owned a vehicle. 

“Them putting that money in there for me, supporting our Sweet Sol worker-owned business and planning for the next year really helped alleviate so much stress,” she says. “It was like a fog was lifted from my brain where I realized, ‘Oh, you were lacking capacity because you were poor.” Some may call it serendipity.

Henderson remembers it as the moment that unleashed a windfall substantial financial support that made it possible for them to not only expand Gangster Growers’ programming, but also market and sell more of their Sweet Sol uniquely flavored hot sauce.

 Fast forward to 2025, and Kindred Futures and The Come Up Project are now strategic partners on Shared Ownership.

The Come-Up Project will use a recent Kindred Futures grant to hire a Business Service Manager for their worker-owner cooperative. The manager will focus on driving product growth while upholding the cooperative’s values of shared ownership and democratic decision-making. The support will also allow the organization to develop and implement strategies to enhance market reach, optimize production processes, and improve product offerings to meet customer demand. Building partnerships, analyzing market trends, and identifying growth opportunities prioritizing longterm sustainability.

“Without having an organization like Kindred Futures focused on the empowerment and selfsufficiency of Black people, we will never be safe,” Henderson says. “When I recently heard Janelle talking about the Talented 90th, I said that was a word, because that’s the community I rock with. That’s how we going to all reach our goals, not by just having a few.”