Tux & Chucks is an event where style and innovation meet. Year after year, this Detroit-based event gets bigger and better. The sixth annual Tux & Chucks fundraiser, held at The Sound Board, is surely going down in the books as the best event ever. The event was flawless, down to the well thought out details implemented by Cool Smart Inc., the team that organized this event, and their execution reached perfection.
Live band, DJ, karaoke, delicious cuisine, photo fun booths, at least five open bars, and a dance floor where the ambiance pulled you in and made you want to celebrate, were all elements of the event that made it exceptional. Tux & Chucks offered a unique experience to guests, from the moment they walked through the door and the photographer snapped their picture as a keepsake of the night, until the moment they left with dope swag bags.
Three nonprofits were honored during the event and rolling out was able to chat with one of the honorees, Jason Wilson. Read on to find out what he had to say about his organization, The Yunion, and being chosen to be honored at such an elite event.
How does it feel to be honored tonight?
It was truly an honor to be acknowledged by Cool Smart Inc. I have been very familiar with the Tux & Chucks fundraiser for years and it’s so good to finally be in town and able to come but more so to be honored by the people, especially on Facebook who chose to pick us as one of the three organizations.
How did you come up with the name of your organization? How does it benefit the city?
The Yunion? We first started out as a Christian hip-hop label. I’ve actually produced songs for Red Man and Kurupt when I was very popular rap group in Detroit called Kaos & Mystro. When I came out of producing new secular music, I decided to make music that countered the message that I was producing so we called it Yunion records with a Y in front of the word “union” to identify with the youth and we didn’t want to just use the word Union because we’re in the motor city and there are unions everywhere and we didn’t want any confusion so that’s how the name Yunion came up. We also won an award for our Transformational male academy for comprehensive male development called The Cave of Adullam,which is one of three programs under the umbrella of The Yunion, where we introduce men and young boys to the root of their unresolved anger, fear, anxiety and father wounds and then teach them how to introspectively confront and conquer them with composure. Another one of our programs is called SWAG — students with awareness and goals — and it’s a program that teaches prevention against violence, drug abuse, alcohol abuse and pre-marital sex, and lastly we have Keys to Life: Mentoring through music where we use key principles in music to help kids navigate through the pressures of the world. There is also a program for young African American women and mothers called Standing in the Gap, where we raise awareness about AIDS and how it affects them.
When was your organization founded? What inspired your startup?
It was founded in 2003, we are in 14 schools, we have social workers, counselors, sponsors for our youth, and a summer camp. I saw the negative effects of the culture of hip-hop and we wanted to create a relevant vehicle for our youth to reach success. Our whole philosophy is to teach them principles they can carry throughout their life.
To find out more information on The Yunion, contact them at theyunion.org.
Check out some pics from Tux & Chucks 2016 below.
Photo gallery credit: Treasure Smith for Steed Media
