Sep 6, 2025 | J-KOA September 2025 National Board Meeting

Attendees: Koya, Danielle, Eric, Toni 

Excused: Andrea, Oscar

Notes

• Icebreaker: bring an object that ties you to your heritage--familial or chosen--and be prepared to explain why it's significant to you.

  • Eric: Pillow that was on his grandmother’s couch when he was a baby.  Reminds him of a time when he was young and all the stuff they used to do together. Other item is a sheet that’s like “all Black folks have these sheets” type of blanket.

  • Danielle: Pictures! Family has stacks and stacks of photos and both parents are the youngest of 7 siblings.  Having pictures helps family understand lineage and keeps the family connected

  • Toni: Rosary from the Philippines! Significant to me because my faith is a huge part of my identity and I got it on my first trip back to the Philippines since I was like, 2.  Growing up with immigrant parents from an extremely catholic country, one of the first places our family found community was in a church and I feel like that upbringing shaped who I would become and my need for social justice

  • Koya: Grandfather was a meteorologist in WWII, flew into a hurricane and diverted the group and was awarded a medal for it (what Koya would have brought in but it was lost in transit) Significant because he talks a lot about his Filipino-Hawaiian side but never really talks about his other side of the family, but even way back then, his families were connected! Both grandfathers were on the same base in the Philippines within a mile of each other. 

• Updates: each of you has seen progress/developments with your respective roles; it'd be great to  hear about them and get an update from you for the rest of the board! These updates can be as short as you like, but, for the sake of time, let's plan to keep them to 5 minutes with 5-10 minutes for questions/discussion. If you have slides, please send those as a reply to this invite prior to the meeting. Order of updates:

  • Eric: TEKS and any other operations

    • Met with Alex, Aurora KOA already had a meeting

    • Start Dates: Oct 7 at AST (Tuesdays and Thursdays), Oct 8 at Boston (Wednesdays and Thursday)

    • ACC Start date will line with the above dates, Koya was just waiting on confirmation

    • Need to confirm how soon we can go to 2 sessions a week per location

    • Alex in Comps until the 23rd, Eric supporting remotely in the interim

    • Each person emailing from their accounts and ccing the J-KOA account when coordinating!

    • Abishek to coordinate with Danielle for materials (tentatively)

      • Google sheet to be made for supply needs

    • Questions: Mentorship recruitment

      • Last session for recruitment will be by the 26th!

      • Eric to reach out to past mentors

      • 30 students seems like the sweet spot for coordination with budget (10 students from each location; Boston maybe 15)

      • Spanish speaking mentors would be helpful!!

      • Volunteer tiers!

  • Toni: Branch branding/any other historian updates

    • Branches making their own Instagram accounts

    • Needing to collect all the board’s pictures and info to update the website with the current board

    • Website: working to make it more ADA compliant

    • Ask: Article(s) for the blog from TEKS

      • Where we started vs. how it’s going

      • Road to the Science Fair

      • Recruitment

      • Snippets from blog can also be used for instagram account

  • Danielle: Treasury updates and spending updates from fiscal sponsor (ACC)

    • Donation portal is set up! Can be shared wherever

    • Bank Account set-up

      • Unable to open a business account since we don’t have a business ID

      • Koya to have physical card given to us from ACC (limit based on money we receive)

    • Amazon Business Account: 2 users in an account is free, more users will cost us starting at $180 

      • Purchasing process: likely overseen by Danielle, trusting branches to make purchases but just making sure everyone is being smart about it

    • Reimbursement process

      • Needs: comprehensive list of where the money is coming from, who gets what, etc.

      • Goal: get away from people using their individual/personal accounts to purchase items

    • Need: Folder in Share Drive for expenses, purchasing, etc.

      • Toni will set up!

      • Danielle will flush it out to make it easy to navigate in the future

    • Koya and Oscar working as “independent contractors” with CUPS in order to get the funds; those funds will go to them and be “donated” back to J-KOA so we can start using their funding

    • Need to track funding for future practices

  • Branch presidents: Any updates you'd like to share (not required)

    • Andrea: Bay’s KOA mostly working on infrastructure and outreach initiatives 

      • Andrea sent over newsletter (obsessed)

    • Oscar: Ana is thinking about doing outreach with built science kits at local elementary; testing kits with students and wants to focus on elementary level

  • Koya: ACC mentorship

    • APS focusing on initiatives with 3 schools, it will be their responsibility to get to ACC!

    • Koya piloting mentorship program with ACC counselors with the goal of getting students to state level (slightly more intensive program)

    • Middle School students primarily

    • Goal/vision – Generational Mentorship program: highschoolers mentor middle schoolers who mentor elementary school students

• Insurance vote: we may have to purchase some form of insurance for working in the community and/or with minors--if necessary, I'd like to get the approval of the board for those funds.

  • Proposal: up to $500 for insurance 

  • In favor: 4, Opposed: 0

• Preview donation video: Koya and Toni have been working on a short video to solicit donations--would be great to get the board's feedback on it.

  • Koya to post in Discord for feedback!

• Plan moving forward: to be presented by Koya

  • Planning on becoming an independent nonprofit next year

  • Do we want to push for expansion to other campuses, sites, etc.

    • Eric: more for stabilizing and building our successes before expansion

      • How things were pre-KOA and after KOA when proposing partnerships in the future

    • Toni: with how we have changed this year, expansion can be too much too soon; we need to restabilize our foundation with the adjustments

      • Opportunity to build hype around J-KOA’s work with future partnerships (schools, orgs, etc.)

      • Need to establish pitch deck and outlines to build for expansion

    • Koya: would want future branches to be self sustained and running on their own (so we need strong foundation built to just help future branches get on their feet)