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Celebrating Financial Literacy Month: Lendistry CEO Everett Sands Pioneers with Scientific Brilliance

NNPA NEWSWIRE — Lendistry CEO Everett K. Sands is motivated to do more than just get the word out; “One of the things that’s been part of my career is thinking about access to capital as skill and thinking about access to capital that for underserved communities. I think about it in three different ways. I think about it as Product, a process and a policy question, and those are the three things that I am typically working on.”
The post Celebrating Financial Literacy Month: Lendistry CEO Everett Sands Pioneers with Scientific Brilliance first appeared on BlackPressUSA.

Published

3 years ago

April 13, 2023

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By Kenneth Miller, Inglewood Today

“Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise”—I Rise (last verse) Maya Angelou

Everett K. Sands, the Chief Executive Officer of Lendistry, life began as a small child with a brain that imagined a lot of what ifs.

What if his grandfather had the money to keep his tailor shop open? What if his parents did not start college at Howard University in Washington, DC when they were older?

And so, when a young Everett set off on a path to solve complicated financial puzzles that drive most people crazy, it tuned his competitive mind similar to the way a Michael Jordan or a LeBron James trained their body to become the greatest basketball players in history.

The wisdom he accumulated would lead this son of a doctor to earn a scholarship to a prestigious boarding school in the Washington DC area where he met the heir twin granddaughters of the Walmart Family, the richest family in America. The by chance meeting was enough for him to realize that he belonged.

His mother prayed for him to become a trailblazer and while he admitted that he does sometimes think about what causes him to think the way he does, he has not fully embraced pioneer status.

On Zoom, he sat isolated on a multicolored striped couch, wearing a purple polo with Lendistry stitched across his heart and a white Nike check on the left sleeve, expanding on how he became arguably one of the most impactful men in finance and lending for 58 minutes.

His laser eyes adjusted the computer for better concentration and his mind races to perfect his illustration of the next question.

Where does the foundation of Everett K. Sands begin?

“I don’t think there is a single thing. Like anybody else. We are all a series of events. The way I best describe it which is probably not perfect, but is what’s in my mind. I grew up as a kid with a lot of what ifs. I have parents that went to Howard, but they went late. They went to undergrad on time and went to graduate school kind of late. But you see your parents go late and you say oh that’s interesting, and then we drive past buildings and my mom would say that was your grandfather’s shop. The question is why isn’t it the shop now. And then you start to kind of just put the pieces together.”

He started to assemble the puzzle when he attended that boarding school and met really affluent people which also included the Walton granddaughters with whom he had a casual acquaintance.

They came to school in a limo, Sands did not show up in a limousine. When his friend asked if he knew who the twins were, he did not. He wasn’t poor, but certainly not as wealthy as his classmates. It didn’t take long for him to discover their grandfather is the founder of Walmart.

Sands got close enough to the twins to ask questions and discovered their grandfather got a loan for $30,000, but his grandfather did not gain access to capital and theirs did.

“I then started to put the pieces together. My parents went to school late because the money wasn’t there. We don’t have that building anymore because something happened with the business. Those moments and thoughts led me to ponder what if they had the access to capital?”

Sands contemplated what if he was there and what could he have done, his competitive juices flowing.

Lendistry, which he founded in 2015, is a byproduct of Sands looking at every business as if it was his grandfather’s, and it didn’t matter whether you were Black or white.

“I am a scientist by nature. I grew up Premed, my dad’s a doctor and so in science what you learn is A B testing. You learn how to look at a problem with multiple solutions because most scientist are trying to discover a cure for something, but I brought that into lending and that’s my process policy conversation,” he elaborated

Sands genius is a rare combination of renown scientist George Washington Carver and historical financier Maggie Lena Walker who was the first Black woman to establish and serve as president of a bank in the United States in 1903.

“I am a scientist and I am an individual who is extremely competitive and when you push all three of those together and you have me focus on underserved and undercapitalized communities that’s what you get. You get this guy that’s extremely determined to figure it out.” he said.

From the boarding school, Sands went on to University of Pennsylvania where he served as a board member for the Penn Institute for Urban Research and the Center for Strategic Economic Studies and Institutional Development.

While at Penn he met a mentor who tasked him to create a mortgage company. He was the person who did all of the research and did all of the things to figure it out. Although he and his mentor went their separate ways, Sands joined forces with a fraternity brother and the two of them developed one of the top 10 mortgage companies in America. Eventually, they earned a board seat on the first Black-owned bank in Maryland, Ideal Federal Savings.

That’s was at just 26-years of age and the two frat brothers have remained business partners since 1999.

The Ideal Federal Savings experience sparked something in him. He understood financing and subsequently sold the mortgage company and went to another Black bank as a leader.

“Those two experiences of sitting on the board of the bank are real life experiences that teach you things you don’t learn at Penn.”

By the time he went to Wells Fargo he was like an outlier because he could do almost everything.

“I ended up becoming the top one percent at Wells in terms of revenue and you name the stat from profitability which matters most to all of the other stuff.”

Although he was in the top one percent, he was just a token. Nonetheless what he managed to obtain levels of knowledge at Wells that he could not at the community bank.

The light bulb went on when he was introduced Corresponding banking which is the group that lends money to community banks.

He defined National Financial Literacy Month by merely prescribing solutions to the community it plagues.

“I think it means a couple of things. How do we think about deploying education and resources out to those who are looking to either expand their future, somewhat get a hold of their future and our lay the foundation,” he stated eloquently.

Sands is motivated to do more than just get the word out; “One of the things that’s been part of my career is thinking about access to capital as skill and thinking about access to capital that for underserved communities. I think about it in three different ways. I think about it as Product, a process and a policy question, and those are the three things that I am typically working on.”

When he thinks about financial literacy as a whole, process is the one that comes up.

“We’ve all said, hey… I wish would have learned more about credit in high school or how to balance my check book when I was a kid. I think where we have a challenge is we don’t always meet the user where they are at. The average kid is spending about two hours on Tic Toc right now, so are we creating a financial literacy that’s on Tic Toc? or, are we saying hey you should read this book? I am not saying there is anything wrong with reading, I am a reader, but I am also saying you have to have multiple ways to reach an audience and you have find ways to reach an audience where they are at.”

Sands admits that there are some structural issues, particularly legislatively, that seems to be stacked against Blacks and minorities.

“I think the first thing we need to look at is, have there been a higher number of Black politicians, and I think the answer to that question is yes. Are we, people on the ground helping them execute. At an eye level it’s about voting, but on a secondary level it’s about having conversations no different than if you were as going to address your neighborhood,” Sands added.

He educates politicians when he meets with them, and ask what the goal is from a legislative stand point and then he shares with them what’s happening from the street to bring about a resolution that benefits both the public servant and the community they serve.

Sands believes reason that Black communities suffer is because we are behind in the steps; “That doesn’t mean you don’t go through the evolution of the steps, that means you’re behind in the race, those are two separate things.”

The first step was to get our voices heard, then to elect officials who served our best interest and now, the responsibility of this generation is execution, which is what Lendistry did during the COVID pandemic.

“When it came time for the pandemic, we raised our hand and said let us be in the ball game of programming so that we could be the deployers of capital.”

That wasn’t easy because Lendistry had to assemble themselves very quickly and do all of the things the government required.

Lendistry became a one of the stars for the SBA during the pandemic, granting loans up to $10 million nationwide, and then because of determination and client focus, Lendistry lent upwards of $8 billion to more than half a million businesses across all 50 states.

Additionally, he was instrumental in the State of California non-profits receiving funding, the only state to do so.

Family is super important for Sands, most of them are here in Southern California but his mother is still in D.C.

“I work hard for them so that they don’t have to work as hard as I have to work,” he concluded.

Sands is very sensitive and protective of his family, especially his twin daughters.

“Like any parent I feel most helpless when they are sick or not feeling well.”

At his core he is a revolutionary teacher who has the uncanny ability to elucidate complicated financial widgets so the everyday consumer can comprehend.

Lendistry has mega clients as Amazon on its roster in addition to the myriad of banks and other financial institutions that relies on their services.

Everett K. Sands is a renaissance man, a revolutionary responsible for billions of dollars, also lives and futures of people like his grandfather.

Paving the way for perhaps another likeminded genius to evolve.

The post Celebrating Financial Literacy Month: Lendistry CEO Everett Sands Pioneers with Scientific Brilliance first appeared on BlackPressUSA.

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Poll Shows Support for Policies That Help Families Afford Child Care

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — New national polling shows persistent voter concern about the affordability and availability of child care for working parents, alongside broad support across key demographic groups for federal child care policies that help families afford care.

Published

3 days ago

March 2, 2026

Oakland Post

By First Five Years Fund

New national polling shows persistent voter concern about the affordability and availability of child care for working parents, alongside broad support across key demographic groups for federal child care policies that help families afford care.

The national survey was conducted by UpOne Insight on behalf of the First Five Years Fund from January 13–18, 2026.

Key findings include:

• Parents need help: 80% of voters say the ability of working parents to find and afford child care is either in a state of crisis or a major problem.

• This is an affordability issue: 82% believe federal child care funding will help lower costs for working families — including 69% of Republicans, 84% of Independents, and 94% of Democrats.

• And there continues to be strong support (62%) for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), a federal program that makes it possible for hundreds of thousands of families to afford safe, quality care for their children while parents work or go to school, including a majority of Republicans, 63% of Independents and 72% of Democrats.

• Support for funding child care programs remains strong: 75% believe child care funding should be increased or kept at current levels — including 75% of Republicans, 85% of Independents, and 97% of Democrats.

• 74% say funding for child care is an important and good use of tax dollars, including a majority of Republicans, three-quarters of Independents, and nine in ten Democrats.

FFYF Executive Director Sarah Rittling said, “Voters across the country are sending a clear message: federal child care and early learning programs work. These investments help parents stay in the workforce, strengthen families, and support healthy child development. They have also long had strong bipartisan support in Congress. At a time when affordability is top of mind for families, continued federal funding is essential to ensure child care remains accessible and within reach.”

First Five Years Fund works to protect, prioritize, and build bipartisan support for quality child care and early learning programs at the federal level. Reliable, affordable, and high-quality early learning and child care can be transformative, not only enhancing a child’s prospects for a brighter future but also bolstering working parents and fostering economic stability nationwide.

We work with Congress and the Administration to identify federal solutions that work for families with young children, as well as states and communities. We work with policymakers to identify ways to increase access to affordable, high-quality child care and early learning programs for children. And we collaborate with advocacy groups to help align best practices with the best possible policies. http://www.ffyf.org

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Trump’s MAGA Allies are Creating Executive Order Plan to Steal the 2026 Midterms

NNPA NEWSWIRE — The document that could lead to an executive order proposes using the claim that China interfered with the 2020 elections as grounds to “declare a national emergency.” The move would be an unprecedented step that would grant Trump new authority over the voting systems in the U.S.

Published

6 days ago

February 27, 2026

Oakland Post

By Lauren Victoria Burke, NNPA Newswire Correspondent

A group of MAGA pro-Trump activists, who say they are working in coordination with the White House, are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that would claim without evidence that China interfered with the 2020 presidential election. Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential to President Joe Biden by over 7 million votes. Since Trump lost to Biden in 2020, he has repeatedly claimed that the election was “stolen” without evidence. The report of a group of “Trump allies” preparing an executive order to give Trump power over elections was first reported by The Washington Post.

The lies around the right-wing campaign that pushed falsehoods that the 2020 election was stolen was trafficked through right-wing media, particularly Fox News. Fox News was then sued for defamation for the claims by Dominion Voting Systems. Fox lost the case and had to settle for the largest defamation amount on record of $787.5 million in April 2023.

The document that could lead to an executive order proposes using the claim that China interfered with the 2020 elections as grounds to “declare a national emergency.” The move would be an unprecedented step that would grant Trump new authority over the voting systems in the U.S.

The story in The Washington Post arrives as Trump increasingly signals that he may take actions that would alter the result of the 2026 midterms. The Republicans are widely expected to lose as their approval ratings plummet as a result of a failing economy under Trump. Over 50 members of Congress have announced they will retire this year and not return in 2027.

The Trump Department of Justice, which now has a large image of Trump on the side of it, “sued five new states Thursday [Feb. 26, 2026] demanding access to their unredacted voter rolls — escalating a campaign that has been rejected by multiple federal courts and faces resistance from Republican-led states as well,” according to Democracy Docket, a group that works to protect voting rights.

Trump claimed back in late 2020, the last year of his first term, that he had the authority to issue an executive order related to mail-in voting for the 2020 elections — which he would then lose. But the Constitution states that control of elections lies with the states. As the GOP works to place hurdles in front of voting, Democrats worked to make voting easier.

In March 2021, President Biden signed an executive order calling on federal agencies to expand voting access as part of the Biden Administration’s effort “to promote and defend the right to vote for all Americans who are legally entitled to participate in elections.”

Trump’s focus is clearly on altering the November 2026 midterm elections. Trump’s polling numbers and the elections and special elections that have taken place around the U.S. over the last year clearly indicate that Republicans are about to be hit by a blue wave of Democratic victories.

Lauren Victoria Burke is an independent investigative journalist and the founder of Black Virginia News. She is a political analyst who appears on #RolandMartinUnfiltered and hosts the show LAUREN LIVE on YouTube @LaurenVictoriaBurke. She can be contacted at LBurke007@gmail.com and on twitter at @LVBurke

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PRESS ROOM: NBA Hall of Fame Nominee Terry Cummings Joins 100 Black Men of DeKalb County to Launch Victory & Values Initiative

NNPA NEWSWIRE — NBA Hall of Fame nominee and Basketball Legend Terry Cummings was administered the official member’s oath and ceremonially pinned during a special induction ceremony held on Friday, February 20th.

Published

6 days ago

February 27, 2026

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Cummings becomes an honorary member, joining other role model sports stars

NBA Hall of Fame nominee and Basketball Legend Terry Cummings has officially become an honorary member of the 100 Black Men of DeKalb County, marking a powerful new chapter for the 100 Black Men and youth development across the region.

Cummings was administered the official member’s oath and ceremonially pinned during a special induction ceremony held on Friday, February 20th. The moment signified more than membership — it marked the launch of the organization’s transformative new platform, the Victory & Values Initiative.

The Victory & Values Initiative is a groundbreaking youth development program designed to empower elementary and middle school students through a dynamic blend of sports, mentorship, and STEM exposure. The initiative focuses on building health, discipline, character, leadership, and access to opportunity — creating pathways for long-term academic and personal success.

“This is about more than sports,” said Cummings during the ceremony. “It’s about using the platform of athletics to teach life lessons, create access, and build the next generation of leaders.”

The induction ceremony also featured notable guests including NASCAR’s newest Star Driver, Lavar Scott and NASCAR Director of Athletic Performance, Phil Horton, who joined Cummings for a powerful Victory & Values Town Hall discussion. The Town Hall was moderated by renowned Sports Emcee John Hollins and focused on leadership, resilience, discipline, and the importance of mentorship in shaping young lives.

A “Day at NASCAR” for 75+ Youth

Cummings wasted no time getting to work. On his first full day as an honorary member, he joined his new brothers of the 100 Black Men of DeKalb County to host a “Day at NASCAR,” escorting more than 75 youth to a once-in-a-lifetime experience at EchoPark Motor Speedway (formerly Atlanta Motor Speedway).

The youth participants received behind-the-scenes access including: an exclusive tour of Pit Row, access to the Garage Area and exploration of the interactive Fan Zone.

The experience culminated with a surprise meet-and-greet and Q&A session with NASCAR Superstar Bubba Wallace, who shared insights on perseverance, preparation, and breaking barriers in professional sports.

The day served as a living example of the ‘Victory & Values’ Initiative in action — exposing youth to new industries, expanding their vision for the future, and connecting them directly with high- level mentors and role models.

Building Leaders Through Access and Mentorship

The 100 Black Men of DeKalb County – a chapter of the largest, national mentoring organization in the county – continues to expand its footprint with programs focused on academic excellence, economic empowerment, leadership development, and health & wellness.

The launch of ‘Victory & Values’ represents a strategic expansion of the organization’s impact

intentionally integrating athletics and STEM to engage youth at an early age while reinforcing core principles such as integrity, accountability, teamwork, and perseverance.

“Our mission has always been to mentor the next generation,” said Vaughn Irons, President-Elect of the 100 Black Men of DeKalb County. “With Terry Cummings joining the brotherhood, along with partners in NASCAR and professional sports, we are creating unprecedented access and exposure for our youth. Victory & Values is about turning inspiration into structured opportunity.”

By connecting elementary and middle school students to professional athletes, executives, STEM professionals, and community leaders, the initiative aims to:

Increase youth exposure to careers in sports business, engineering, and performance science
Strengthen mentorship pipelines
Promote physical wellness and mental resilience
Build character-driven leadership at an early age

Open Invitation to Youth and Families

All youth are invited to participate in the Victory & Values Initiative, along with the other countless, impactful programs offered by the 100 Black Men of DeKalb County.

Parents and guardians seeking mentorship, leadership development, academic enrichment, and transformative exposure opportunities for their children are encouraged to connect with the organization.

As NBA Legend Terry Cummings’ induction demonstrates, Victory & Values is more than a program — it is a movement designed to build champions in life, not just in sports.

For more information about the Victory & Values Initiative or to enroll a student, contact: 100 Black Men of DeKalb County at Phone at 404.241.1338, info@100bmod.org or Tee Foxx at 404.791.6525,