Logan Herring: Building Off His Goucher Experience To Foster A Better Community Through The WRK Group

Logan Herring has a rich Civil Rights connection through his grandfather, Reverend Otis Herring, and takes from his student-athlete experiences to drive him to change the trajectory of folks that are just like him.

"You know there are those two low moments, which became moments of opportunity for me that stuck in the memory and they have helped me be successful in the rest of my career in my life," said Herring.

Those two moments that Herring points to originate from when he was a member of the Gophers men's soccer and men's basketball teams.

Herring played soccer his entire life and was a striker for most of his career. He was the Blue and Gold leading scorer his freshman year, but a change in coach in his second season also came with an unwanted change in position to defense.

"I just loved scoring goals, and so we did not see eye to eye on that decision," said Herring. "I ended up getting first-team all-conference as a defender, and I led the team in scoring. It was like my worst moment became the best moment on the soccer field."

Herring was a three-time All-Capital Athletic Conference defender with first-team selections in 2001 and 2002 and a second-team nod in 2003. He finished his career with 15 goals and seven assists for 37 points. 

Herring was also an outstanding player on the basketball court even though Goucher did not know what they had initially. Tom Rose, an assistant coach at the time, visited Herring's high school and his coach told Rose about Herring.

Herring resisted the initial request to join the men's basketball team as a freshman, looking to gain muscle that would transform his 165 pounds into 190 pounds. After a second request to try out for basketball in his sophomore year, Herring relented and joined the Goucher men's basketball team.

"I think, like the first game or two I didn't even play and then I ended up becoming the captain of the team, so I was then the captain of the basketball and soccer teams," said Herring.

Herring also played on two dramatically different teams as far as diversity.

"The black population and culture are the minority, so there aren't a lot of us," said Herring. "The black experience, although it's not monolithic we have a lot of things in common, and one thing we had in common, we were all the minority on campus. So you know, being able to relate to one another, I felt more like myself when I was with the basketball team, than I was with the soccer team, although I played soccer my whole life. I was kind of used to that culture." 

The time as a student-athlete and experiences on the Baltimore campus almost didn't happen without a little push by his brother, who is 13-years older.

"I just automatically assumed coming from Delaware, I was going to go to University Delaware," said Herring. "My brother was like 'you gotta look outside of Delaware.' So, I chose one other school to look at and it was Goucher. I was going down there visiting with the intention of not necessarily giving it a shot and when I walked on the campus and I just felt the energy."

Herring will tell you that going to Goucher turned out to be his best decision and his experiences since have been aided by his time in college.

In recent years, Herring has spoken to the men's soccer team and helped secure an internship for a student-athlete. Goucher announced a new student-athlete group called the Black Gophers, and Herring would love to assist with the group.

"I would love to help be a part of those conversations and facilitate those conversations, said Herring. "I would love to establish relationships with all of the students, particularly the soccer players and basketball players because we share something in common."

After Herring left Goucher in 2004, he started a non-profit, mentoring program with his brother and best friend called Delaware Elite, Inc. at the age of 23. The organization intended to holistically prepare at-risk young men for their next steps in life. 

"I started a non-profit because I was very fortunate to be exposed and have opportunities to play collegiate sports," said Herring. "When I came back to Delaware, I saw that a lot of the athletes that I looked up to when I was younger hadn't really done anything with their lives, some of them weren't alive anymore, some of them were locked up somewhere or just still hanging out on the same corners. I said we have to do something to change the future generation, change the trajectory of folks that look like me."

In 2014, Herring returned to a place that he worked as a teenager with the Boys & Girls Club of Delaware before joining the Kingswood Community Center in the Riverside neighborhood of Wilmington, Delaware, in 2016.

"It is the most impoverished neighborhood in Wilmington," said Herring. "In that community, 70 percent of the children live in poverty. I came to save a dying Community Center that has been in existence for over 70 years but was struggling to make ends meet because of the previous management and the decisions they made. It was really about to close its doors and within two years, we were able to turn around that organization and stabilize it."

The successful turnaround of Kingswood Community Center turned into Herring building two additional organizations, The Warehouse and REACH Riverside. Together, the three organizations create The WRK Group, with the collective mission to empower the community to reach its full potential by eliminating the barriers of structural racism and revolutionizing teen engagement. Herring is the CEO of all three non-profit organizations.

Kingswood Community Center has been "Empowering the Community" of Riverside and Northeast Wilmington since 1946, providing programming for children from the age of one until graduation from high school that includes before and after school programming.

The Warehouse is developed "For Teens, By Teens" and is an innovative, one-stop center for ages 13-19 that focuses on recreation, education, arts, career, and health. The three goals of the center are safety, educational support, and workforce readiness.

REACH Riverside was developed "With the Community, For the Community" and is leading a $250 million holistic revitalization effort through its three pillars of redevelopment, education, and community health. The organization is redeveloping up to 600 units of high quality, mixed-income housing. It also focuses on education with a cradle-to-college and career readiness pipeline and health, wellness, and safety services and programming.

Leading the WRK Group, Herring points to his experience as a student-athlete that helps him be successful today.

"When I was the captain of the soccer and basketball team at Goucher, it was the same thing you know, I was supporting them as I wasn't always the best player, I wasn't always a star athlete, but I was the person that you would never take-off of the field, or the basketball court because I'm going to do everything necessary to try to help us win," said Herring. "It's all about the overall goals of the team and how we make sure that we achieve them. I know it sounds cliche, but I have a tremendous team, and we're continuing to grow."

Herring and his team have been an example in the community, especially in the pandemic. They raised $500,000 in a couple of months to create a stimulus package with each Riverside family receiving $1,250 over five months with no restrictions on how the money was used. Also, they distributed 400 Chromebooks and 15,000 meals throughout the community and set up screening and testing facilities since April so people would know their status and not spread the virus to make the community more vulnerable. 

"At a time where our community has been made the most vulnerable, we were able to stand in the gap a little bit and help people survive," said Herring.

The other part that has driven Herring is that his family has been a part of the Civil Rights Movement that goes back to his grandfather, Otis. An example of his grandfather's ties to the Civil Rights Movement is Reverend Jesse Jackson would stay at his grandfather's house when he came to town. Herring's grandfather, the founder of the Union Baptist Church, was also one of the first in the community to endorse President Joe Biden's political career.

President Biden donated $160,000 to the Kingswood Community Center in the middle of the turnaround to help the center through a tough time. President Biden also has a tradition to return to where it all started for him on Election Day and came to visit the organizations run by Herring. The meeting, initially scheduled to be a quick 10-minute visit, turned into an hour.

That is not the only encounter Herring has had with the President. A few months earlier, after some looting occurred in the area, Herring was walking down the street with his four-year-old son. President Biden and Delaware Congresswoman Lisa Blunt-Rochester spotted the two and were asked to join them because they were talking about The Warehouse. Herring, bending down with his son and President Biden, they talked, and a picture was taken that went viral. Herring was then also asked to speak alongside other community members and President Biden to discuss what was going on in the country and locally.

"The relationship with me and my family and Joe Biden is multi-generational and it's real," said Herring. "We often hear stories about Joe Biden. He's a real individual and I'm happy that he's in office, and that we can continue to move this country forward in a positive way."

Herring was 12-years old when his grandfather passed so he did not fully understand the magnitude of the impact his grandfather had on the community. Herring believes that his grandfather would be extremely proud of the work that he is doing but would have a bit of sadness too because the two are sharing the same work decades apart.

"Every single facet of what I'm doing, he was doing back in the 60s, 70s, and 80s," said Herring. "I'm his grandchild and I have to do the same thing, so my goal in life is for my son to grow up and by the time he reaches adulthood, he does not have to do the same thing that I'm doing."

Every parent's goal is to make it a better place for their children. Herring is doing his best to do that for his family and his community. A piece of that journey came through Goucher College and that is something to be #GoucherProud of as he continues to create #GopherGreatness and make a difference in his community.

For more information on the WRK Group, CLICK HERE to watch a video.