From our Arthur Ashe commemorative issue: These Richmonders share Ashe's commitment to strengthen the African-American community.
Alexandra Hicks (Photo by Jay Paul)
In 1994, Henrico County got a new elementary school, and when school leaders deliberated over a name, they chose to honor a prominent African-American who had recently died: Arthur Ashe. For Alexandra Hicks — one of the first students to graduate from Arthur Ashe Elementary School — it left an indelible impact.
“[Arthur Ashe] was someone who could achieve great things — who was from our community,” Hicks says. “It was a huge deal to go to a school named after an African-American … to know all that he had accomplished and to know that he was a Richmond native. He lived here, he did things here … the fact that he played an instrumental role in education, and here I am, 20-something years later, trying to make an impact in my community the same way that he did, it’s important to me and it means a lot.”
Hicks is the founder of Nerd Squad, a donation-based after-school literacy program that she founded in 2016 after receiving grant money from Feast RVA, a funding platform that receives pitches for creative endeavors and funds up to $500 for selected projects. With the mission to “bring out the book-based super powers in all students,” Nerd Squad partners with local groups, including the Richmond Public Library, Richmond Parks and Recreation, and the Hopewell Police Department, to provide elementary and middle school students with book clubs and scavenger-hunt challenges.
An accountant by training and a self-described “parent first,” Hicks — who has one child of her own — explains that Nerd Squad has “always been a volunteer initiative for me. I’ve had it in the back of my mind for a very long time.” While she started it for her now-14-year-old daughter, Hicks quickly discovered the program benefited her nieces, nephews and other kids in the community. “I just wanted to create a space that was outside of the school so it wouldn’t always seem like something that was being forced on them. … It wasn’t directly connected to school, and grades, and SOLs, but they can still take what we do and apply it to their classroom.”
For the book clubs, Hicks works with librarians and what she calls a “youth review panel” comprising two 8-year-olds, her daughter and a 15-year-old student to choose books that are popular and often raise relevant issues for the African-American community. Last summer, students read and created projects about the science-fiction book “A Wrinkle in Time.” Several students also received free tickets to the movie. When Nerd Squad resumes book clubs in January, Hicks hopes to do the same with the young-adult book and film “The Hate U Give,” which she chose with the aid of her daughter.
For Hicks, the love of reading was cultivated by her mother, an avid reader who encouraged Hicks to read whatever she wanted. “My mom was very instrumental in just taking me to the library and not giving me restrictions.” That gave Hicks the freedom to discover new genres and find what she really loved.
Giving students that same ability has paid off for Hicks, who frequently encounters Nerd Squad participants in the community. “Everyone loves it,” says Hicks. “I really wanted this to be a learning process that was fun. [The kids] call me the Nerd Squad lady … some of the students, I’ve seen in the grocery store, and they say, ‘That’s the Nerd Squad lady!’ ”
It’s also paid off in other ways: All the students who participated in Hicks’ last book club were on the honor roll. “I can’t say it was 100 percent us … but I feel good thinking that maybe I had something to do with that.”
