By summer, the word had spread far beyond Southside.
News crews, educators, and nonprofit leaders all made their way to the once-forgotten neighborhood to witness what was now being called *"The Southside Model."*
But to Jaylen, it wasn't a model.
It was *life.*
The old corner store? It had become a student-run co-op. Malik and two others pitched the idea, and within months, it was supplying the neighborhood with affordable essentials—and giving teens a real business to run.
The vacant lot near 8th Street? Now a community garden.
Kids who used to skip class came every Saturday to plant kale, tomatoes, peppers, and dreams. They named it "Rooted."
Even Rico came by sometimes. Not to work—but to sit, smoke, and say nothing. And sometimes, that was enough.
One afternoon, a city official visited the community center. She offered Jaylen a position on the city's youth development board.
"You'd be shaping policy, not just programs," she said.
Jaylen looked around the room—at the scuffed walls, the laughter echoing from the game room, the murals still being painted.
"I'll take it," he said. "But only if the table's big enough for all of *them* too."
That fall, Jaylen gave a TED Talk. He wore a hoodie and sneakers.
> "I wasn't supposed to make it out," he told the crowd.
> "But maybe the goal was never to 'make it out'…
> Maybe it was to *make something right here.*"
He ended with the words painted on the garden wall:
*"Raised by Concrete. Built to Bloom."*
And in every crack of that old pavement, something new had risen.