JaRich Moved to Dallas From Newark To Fund His Nonprofit With His Music

Nonprofits are funded in a variety of ways. One local artist, JaRich, moved to Dallas in 2022 with plans to start initiatives similar to those he had started in his home state. After being featured on The Ellen Degeneres Show in 2022, JaRich became a local legend in his home city of Newark, New Jersey, for funding his nonprofit, Victim to Victor Outreach, and mentoring program, Boys to Men, through his music.

“I was on The Ellen DeGeneres Show because I’m an educator from Northern Jersey and for the work I do in the community,” says JaRich. “I did a lot in the city, Newark, which is an inner city township and the largest city in New Jersey. Ellen picked up on some of the articles and things going around in the area. I just happened to have formed a mentoring program in the high school called Boys to Men for young Black and Brown boys to feel safe, to share their woes and their troubles about gang violence and drug prevention and drug usage, and just have a safe place to be able to share those vulnerabilities. They can talk to grown men from the same communities they are.”

In his mentoring program, JaRich was regarded for going above and beyond for the boys he works with, assisting their needs in more ways than mentorship. He’d help his students with everything from school supplies to shoes and haircuts.

“I realized a lot of students don’t have the means to express themselves, they’re faced with a lot of drug and gang presence,” he says. “I want them to [think], 'If I have a teacher sitting in front of me who made it out, I can too.'”

After leaving a lasting legacy on his hometown, JaRich decided to branch out and bring his nonprofit work to a new region.

“Being on Ellen was one of the leads that got me to Dallas,” he says. “I started getting fan mail being sent to the school I was at. It was so weird, people were finding out, they found the school I worked at, were trying to help me initiate programs, donate money to the causes, to my nonprofit, it was starting to almost become too much."

That's when he turned his sights to DFW.

"Me, being a spiritual person, I knew it was time to leave Jersey," he says. "I’m a very well-known figure at home, local legend, with music and my nonprofit being very involved in the community. I was very known because of that, and because I’ve been singing professionally since I was 5.”

The lifelong singer launched his musical debut in Dallas in February at Snookie’s Events & More. The event sold out, offrering an intimate setting with the artist on center stage backed by a live band.

“I always sang; singing is in my blood,” JaRich says. “I was very known in the community, coming from a musical family, to have that voice, singing, doing community events. I was always involved in the arts, acting, poetry, different events, always very well endowed into the arts, it’s just my genetic makeup.”

JaRich’s sound is that of soulful R&B with a mixture of funk, pop and gospel influence. The theme of God and giving back reflects through his lyrics and sound, and in his work in the community.

“The music I do, it always goes back. I’m a giver,” says the artist. “I don’t do music just for me. I do it for the greater good of the people, everything I do in my walk of life. I’m a giver, so my music funds a lot of programs and initiatives. Even though I own and run a nonprofit, I don’t have big government money. A lot of the money and funding I have come from my own pocket or from sponsors. But it’s my mission, my calling. My music, it funds all of this. A lot of my proceeds from my music go to my nonprofit. I’m taking that money and I’m placing it back in the community.”

While the singing started in his youth, JaRich says that becoming a teacher and entrepreneur came with his calling. Being from an inner-city area with low success rates, JaRich set his sights on finding a new region where he could do more good with his music, teaching, mentoring and nonprofit work simultaneously.

“I chose Dallas because I had a great offer to work from the city, they offered to pay for my teacher’s certification,” says JaRich, who has received various accredited awards for his work in the community.

“I was awarded a commendation from Mayor Eric Johnson for the work I’m doing and trying to initiate in DISD,” he says, “for taking initiative helping Dallas out any way I can. I was given a city citation and commendation for my work through the arts and education, and trying to bring awareness to some of the same initiatives I partook in and organized in Jersey, such as the Breast Cancer Walk I helped organize for East Grand Prep students and families to raise money for Breast Cancer Awareness month last October.”

His nonprofits and mentoring programs are not the only thing that JaRich implemented in his home region and plans to organize in Dallas.

“I’m in the process at the school I’m at now with the middle-schooler boys trying to make an actual club that extends beyond the classroom or any school setting and something that is an extension of my nonprofit Victim to Victor Outreach,” says JaRich. “I get them to open up to me and build a trust factor with them so that I can speak life into them and try to help turn some of those behaviors by sharing my life’s stories with them and how I’ve succeeded even with coming from a huge inner city like Newark.”

And his plans are still as big as the space between New Jersey and Texas.

“The last two summers, I’ve done at home in Jersey community prayer drives, back to school drives,” he says. “We minister, encourage the kids in the community with words that are intelligent, prayer, then we allow vendors to sell their products — as long as they’re not too raunchy."