Watts has the youngest average population age of any neighborhood in Los Angeles. The average population is just 21 years old and over 50% drop out of school and only 2.9% make it to college. The Watts Empowerment Center serves the demographic in their community that needs it the most — the youth.
The aforementioned statistics, as well as the fact that over 66% of the people Watts Empowerment Center serves live under the national poverty line, are all listed on the Watts Empowerment Center website as indications to the power of bringing people together to provide resources for the youth within their community.
One key piece of Watts Empowerment Center is Lavelle "Yang" Grant. Grant started as a volunteer and worked his way up to his current assistant director role where he constantly inspires youth through the center and activities done at 2250 East 114th street.
"My mission at the Watts Empowerment Center is to give back to my community, also empower the youth," Yang said.
In July, the Rams honored Grant as the first Rams "pLAymaker" of 2026 at an onsite flag football clinic at Watts Empowerment Center.
"A Rams pLAymaker isn't necessarily the person making the biggest play on the field, it's the person making a difference in Los Angeles," Yang said.
The flag football clinic was just one example of the events the Watts Empowerment Center puts on to bring the children of the Watts community together. The 2250 location itself has basketball courts, a playground, arts and crafts, a musical studio, a kitchen and a gym for youth in Watts to come and utilize. Watts Empowerment Center thrives on volunteers, like Grant, to run these various activities that children are passionate about and garner an even stronger sense of community.
One of the most influential initiatives that Watts Empowerment Center runs is a mentorship program where Grant and other volunteers directly mentor someone to prepare them for their future. What gave Grant the motivation to be a mentor and serve his community through Watts Empowerment Center was the example his own mentor — his father — set for him.
"What inspired me to dedicate my life in the community was, growing up, everybody felt like one big family," Yang said. "Also I watched my father give back to the community and he's always told me over and over, 'if someone needs you or need a helping hand with anything, make sure you be there for your family.'"
For Grant, helping the youth through Watts Empowerment Center gives him purpose, and his fulfillment comes simply from seeing someone he mentored go on to do incredible things and beat the statistics placed on Watts as a neighborhood.
"I realized (that) when I was mentoring one of the youth through high school and I saw him go off to one of the number one HBCU colleges and for him to come back and tell me how much of a good role I played in his life (meant a lot)," Yang said. "So now he came back and told the younger youth how much of an impact I was to him."
Grant knows that not everything comes easy. Especially for him, learning how to persevere and work through the hard times will not only help himself, but help all of the youth he's mentoring and working with.
"The best advice I can give is to lock themselves in and don't give up on the mission, because it does get hard at times," Grant said. "Just stay focused and it will pay off."
