Our Founder

I wasn’t supposed to make it here — but here I am.

I’m Remeta Hicks-Montgomery, founder of The Kindred Collective. I’m a Detroit girl, a mother, a macro social worker, a community leader and a systems builder. I’ve spent my career serving people, leading teams and organizations, building programs, and working to make systems better for the people who have to navigate them.

But before any of that, I was a first-generation college student trying to figure out my own way.

I wanted to attend an HBCU. In fact, I was accepted to Howard University while I was already a freshman at Eastern Michigan University. I had the potential and I had the acceptance letter, but I didn’t have a roadmap for what came next. I didn’t know how to navigate transferring, financial aid, enrollment or any of the other steps between you got in and you’re going. And there wasn’t anyone in my immediate circle who knew enough about the process to walk me through it.

So I stayed where I was.

That experience stuck with me because, as I got older, I understood that it was never really just about Howard. It was about what happens when a young person has the ability and even the opportunity, but not the information, relationships or support to fully access it. I had potential. What I was missing was a path. And far too many young people are still standing in that same gap.

Years later, I started taking young people to HBCUs, and I saw firsthand what the right kind of exposure could do. Our tours sold out. One grew to more than 150 students. I watched young people step onto HBCU campuses and see Black excellence everywhere they looked—students, professors, doctors, engineers, artists, entrepreneurs and leaders. I watched their worlds get bigger.

And then I got to watch what happened next. Many of those same students went on to enroll in college, matriculate through HBCUs and other institutions, graduate, begin careers and accomplish things I’m incredibly proud of. Some of them are grown now, building lives and families of their own. There is something deeply meaningful about knowing I got to be a small part of their journey—and it reminds me that the experiences we create for young people can stay with them long after they leave us.

I also learned that getting them there was only part of the work. A campus tour can introduce a possibility, but young people need the tools to pursue it. They need information, preparation, strong relationships and people willing to help them navigate what comes next. They need opportunities to develop their voices, make decisions, practice leadership and learn how to advocate for themselves. They need a village that doesn't simply tell them they can do something, but helps them understand how.

That belief is personal for me in more ways than one. I’m raising three children with very different gifts and needs, and motherhood has taken me through classrooms, performances, diagnoses, IEP meetings, advocacy battles, beautiful milestones and plenty of moments when there was no roadmap and I simply had to figure it out. I know what it feels like to need a village, and I know what it means to be one.

In many ways, that is what I’ve spent my life learning: access matters, but so does having somebody who knows what to do with it.

The Kindred Collective grew from that truth. We create educational experiences that expose Black young people to what is possible while giving them the preparation, community and support to pursue it. We care about excellence. We care about where our students stay, what they eat, what they learn, what they experience and how they are treated while they are with us. There is joy here, because our kids deserve joy. There is also intention behind every campus, workshop, conversation and experience because we take seriously the responsibility of preparing young people for the lives they want to build.

My own work has taken me from serving individual families to leading organizations and working inside complex systems. I’ve had the privilege of sitting in rooms where decisions get made and seeing up close how institutions work—who gets heard, how resources move, and what happens when communities have the knowledge and power to advocate for themselves.

I want our young people prepared for those rooms, too.

I want them to know how to walk into a room prepared, communicate what they believe, understand the systems around them and use their voices well. I want them to recognize their own power before somebody else gets to define it for them. And when they encounter systems that were never designed with them in mind, I want them equipped to challenge them, change them and, when necessary, build something better.

That is the heart of Kindred.

This work carries pieces of everything that has shaped me—the first-generation college student who didn't know what came after the acceptance letter, the social worker who learned to look beyond the individual and ask what needs to change around them, the mother who has had to advocate for her own babies, and the leader who now understands systems from a very different vantage point.

So when a family trusts us with their child, I don't take that lightly. I want our students to be safe and cared for. I want them to laugh until their stomachs hurt, make new friends, eat good food and see beautiful things. I also want them to come home knowing more, thinking bigger, standing a little taller and better prepared for whatever comes next.

That is what we're building here. Something thoughtful. Something excellent. Something our young people deserve.

And we’re building it with love.

~Ms. Remi