Our Board:
Executive Board
Hope Daley-Derry, Founder & Chair
Hope is a native New Yorker who was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York to Jamaican parents who immigrated to New York in the 1940’s. Hope is the last of four children from her parents’ marriage, following two sisters and a brother who lost his life in the Vietnam War. Hope launched A Song For Life: A Sing-Out Against Violence in 2018. Prior to starting the organization, Hope spearheaded the creation, launch and building of Columbia University’s School of Law’s first-ever Public Events Department. Before that, Hope held the position of Program Coordinator at Morningside Heights Legal Services, a law school clinical education initiative established to serve primarily the Harlem community as well as underserved women who are incarcerated. She also served as a Program Coordinator at New York City Technical College at The Small Business Institute where she was responsible for the internship component of the workforce development intiative, The Bear Sterns/Forest City Ratner/MetroTech Center Project. A program that assisted Brooklyn adults re-entering the workforce. Hope also worked as a corporate events/meeting planner for AXA Financial services before moving on to start HD Event Design & Production, her own event planning business. Hope is the wife of vocalist, vocal coach & vocal producer, Craig Derry. Hope and Craig are the proud parents of a daughter, Tsebiyah and a son, Cahleb. Hope and her family reside in New York.
Tsebiyah Derry, Founding Board member & Vice Chair
Tsebiyah is a New York native singer, writer and AEA actor. A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, she has performed on Broadway in Rocktopia, and off-broadway in the long-running Sistas The Musical at NYC’s St. Luke’s Theatre. Tsebiyah is also an alumnus of the British American Drama Academy in London, UK, and can be found working in theatres regionally and internationally. Additionally, Tsebiyah is a children’s theatre educator, and has traveled to Tanzania with Dramatic Adventure Theatre in order to teach children to write and perform their own plays. The resulting piece, Tembo!, was performed at Zanzibar International Film Festival before performances in NYC. At 16 years old, Tsebiyah self-published her own book of poetry and has since been published online on platforms such as For Harriet and HelloBeautiful. Now, she is in the process of writing original music and plays! Tsebiyah is a strong proponent of creative arts education and its usefulness is preparing all students for all fields of work.
Shawn Mims, Founding Board Member & Committee Chair
Shawn Mims aka MIMS is a multi-platinum recording artist, executive producer, Grammy award winning writer, well-known for his global #1 single, “This Is Why I’m Hot”, who has generated over $16 million in gross revenue for EMI/Capitol Records. He is now currently the co-founder for an award winning music startup called Cre8tor.app which has received the most honorable Tech Crunch 2017 Battlefield Start-Up of the year award. He also leads the music industry as a pioneer and advocate for blockchain technology in the music space. His current goal is to provide a more transparent royalty payment structure for artist of the future.
Michelle Evans-Bolt, Founding Board Member & Secretary
Michelle Evans-Bolt currently teaches Entrepreneurship and Personal Financial Planning at a magnet school for Business and Finance in Miami, Florida. She was born in Brooklyn, New York, to a Jamaican father and Cuban mother and attended high school in both Kingston, Jamaica and Brooklyn, New York. After graduating from Long Island University with a Bachelor’s in Marketing, she worked in the airline industry and time- sharing industry for several years. In the late 1980’s she relocated to Miami, decided to change professions, and completed her Master’s Degree in Special Education at Florida International University. Ms. Evans-Bolt’s first leadership role in education was as the Center Chairperson in a middle school that served students identified with a severe emotional disturbance. Since that time, she has taught at both the college and K-12 level with the Miami-Dade County Public School System. Her various leadership roles in education include serving as a Team Leader, Department Chairperson, Lead Teacher, Magnet Program Coordinator, Exceptional Student Education Program Specialist and Clinical Educator. She possess an in-depth knowledge of instructional design for online courses as well as the facilitation of online courses. Her broad understanding of multimedia development, and the design and development of media means to support learning objectives using advanced technology and multimedia resources has been an asset to her instructional efforts in the K-12 setting. She has earned the distinction of Distinguished Lead Teacher by the National Academy Foundation while serving as a Lead Teacher for Hospitality and Tourism at one high school and for Business and Finance at another. She is a National Board Certified teacher and an Educational Specialist in Instructional Technology and Distance Education. Ms. Evans-Bolt has presented at both national and international conferences, however she firmly asserts that the most fulfilling part of her career is working with the high school students she teaches. At any point in time, you might walk into her classroom and hear music while her students are engaged in the creative process; she firmly believes melodic sounds play an integral part in enhancing the learning environment and making it a more transformative experience.
Cahleb E. Derry, Founding Board Member, Treasurer & Junior Board Chair
Cahleb Derry was born in Suffern, NY to his parents, Hope and Craig Derry. He is a Class of 2020 Harvard University graduate, He majored in History & Literature with a focus in Ethnic Studies. At Harvard, Cahleb was heavily involved with the arts community as a proctor for the First-Year Arts Program, a singer in The Harvard LowKeys co-ed a cappella group, and a member of the Signet Society for Arts & Letters. He has an avid passion for the music industry and worked at Paradigm Talent Agency in New York City last summer. Cahleb looks forward to pursuing a career in artist representation, creative development and direction, focusing on artists whose work embrace the positivity that A Song For Life embodies.
Junior Executive Committe
Ismatou Bah: Ismatou is a Class of 2020 graduate of New York University’s College of Arts & Sciences studying Global Public Health and Sociology. She is also an alum of The Taft School. Professionally, Ismatou has always had an avid interest in Entrepreneurship having participated in Google’s Institute for Entrepreneurship when she was 15 years old. When went on to learn code and analyze economic systems for Locus Analytics her junior summer of high school. This sparked her interests in business, which led to her spending her freshman summer as a Finance and Accounting Intern at Geller & Company. Two summers ago, she served as an Executive Intern for Michael Bloomberg, writing and proofing briefings for the former mayor and the rest of the senior executive team. This past summer, she interned as a Social Responsibility Intern for The Libra Group. After studying abroad in Accra, Ghana, Ismatou’s wide-array of interests and skillset led her back to her passion for entrepreneurship. Ismatou looks to take her broad array of skills and interests to further African Development and economies. On-campus, Ismatou is a Global Peer Mentor for NYU Accra and a mentor to a number of students on campus. She’s an active member of the Association of African Development and a co-founder of her own startup. She’s a Gilman Scholar recipient and a Dean’s List student. Ismatou is a Bronx native and proud Guinean having been raised between Guinea and the United States. "