By Scot Kersgaard, JVA Consulting

What if we saw each other as equals? What if, instead of only seeing skin color and the trappings of urban youth, we saw into a person’s heart? Would what we see change?

Anthony Grimes thinks so. He’s betting the farm on it.

Grimes started a company, Urbanmuse Media, to help Denver’s urban teenagers tell their stories through art. The company is producing its first art book, written by 15-year-old Taylor Ellison and illustrated by professional artist Emily Olson, The Place I Call Home is Ellison’s story of growing up in Park Hill. Currently, Urbanmuse is running a Kickstarter to get money for printing the book. You can buy it here. Half the profit will go toward a college fund for Ellison.

“There is a whole generation of people that nobody hears from, nobody knows. There has to be a way to get their message out,” he says about the kids he is working with. Grimes, a Christian minister and a product of Park Hill himself, talks passionately about unlocking the voices and stories of a new generation.

“When young people share their visions, it has the power to change how we see the world,” he says.

Grimes is a 2013 graduate of JVA Consulting’s Social Enterprise Academy, a week-long boot-camp for people who are interested in starting social enterprises. “It was extremely helpful,” he says. “Sarah Hidey and Janine (Vanderburg) were wise and engaging teachers. I found it to be a helpful mix between understanding the universal factors that will help any social enterprise succeed, yet also being given individual attention for questions specific to Urbanmuse.”

His work with Urbanmuse was recently interrupted by a visit to Ferguson, MO, about which he wrote a very moving and powerful blog, Mike Brown’s Blood, published at evangelicalsforsocialaction.org.

“I was there,” he wrote, “because Mike Brown felt like my distant relative and a kind of gatekeeper of my children’s fate if nothing changes.”

Back in Denver, Grimes is doing what he can to make sure things do change.