Jean and Larry Murphy have seen the world. Having been to 46 states and exploring everywhere internationally from Brazil to Spain to Ghana, Jean Murphy believes traveling “opens you up.”
During a family trip to Madrid, they were preparing for dinner at 5 p.m. A restaurant owner told them, “‘Dinner? We don’t have dinner until 9 o’clock.’”
She was astonished when she saw schools in Nigeria for the first time. The students’ attentiveness to the teacher and the lack of behavioral problems were all “unbelievable” to her.
While traveling, Jean Murphy was shocked by the lack of Black people she and her husband would see. With that feeling and the exposure to various lifestyles in their minds, the Murphys formed their nonprofit, L&J’s YoFresh Foundation for Expanding Youth Horizons.
Their goal, as outlined in their mission statement, is to “identify African American high school juniors and seniors and college students who are appropriate candidates to undertake such travel experiences and to award grants toward the costs of their excursions.”
Jean Murphy has learned a lot from her travels. “We wish the same thing for many young people – to experience another culture and learn that life is not black and white. It’s many shades of gray,” she said.
The Murphys hope to bring such experiences to Black students as they make up less than 6% of all students that participate in study abroad programs, according to NAFSA.
Since its founding in 2022, the YoFresh Foundation has awarded nine Black students from Evanston Township High School and various Illinois universities grants to study abroad or embark on personal journeys overseas.
Students usually reach out via phone or email to express their interest in the program. From there, there’s an informal interview where the Murphys get to know the student and whatever program they want to participate in or trip they want to plan. Students then receive a short application to fill out and hear back in about a week.
Currently, the base grant amounts to apply for are $500 or $1,000. However, Jean Murphy says there’s instances where students can receive more if needed.
The Murphys fund the nonprofit in various ways. The our evanston magazine gives 10% of their merchandise sales to the YoFresh nonprofit, as advertised on their website. Outside of that, money is primarily raised through personal donations from customers, friends, family, and residents.
Meet three Black students who’ve received grants from the YoFresh Foundation.
Jesse Johnson
Jesse Johnson, 19, discovered the foundation when Evanston Lighthouse Rotary Club Secretary Linda Gerber encouraged him to apply. After not getting into the Japan Exchange Program at ETHS, the $500 he received from YoFresh funded his month-long personal trip to Fukuoka, Japan last summer.
“There’s really no way to practice Japanese in Evanston,” Johnson said. “I wanted to go experience it and see how much I could learn and how much I already knew.”
Johnson’s first major culture shock was watching his phone switch to military time while waiting on a connecting flight in a Tokyo airport.
“There were a lot of great experiences,” Johnson said. “I gave a speech to the Rotary Club of Tosu in Japanese. I visited a lot of castles and shrines and was able to learn a lot.”
His trip made him want to work to do everything he can to go back to Japan in order to keep learning about the language and culture.
One of the first things he did when he returned from Japan was visit YoFresh Cafe to thank the Murphys.
“I probably wouldn’t have been able to go or have had the same experience as I did if they didn’t give me the grant,” he said. “I think it’s really amazing and I hope to work with them in the future when I get old and have the money to do so.”
Johnson believes the Murphys’ goal of supporting Black youth travel is both important and fitting.
“Black people have had a huge part in shaping the world into what it is today, and we have the right to see and experience that,” Johnson said.
Stephanie Erner
Evanston native Stephanie Erner, 29, discovered the foundation while fundraising to go on the Northeastern Illinois University Ghana Study Tour. She previously received two associate degrees from Oakton College and built a connection with University President Joianne L. Smith during her time there, who eventually recommended the YoFresh Foundation to Erner. She received $1,000 to go to Ghana this past March.
Traveling to Africa became a goal for Erner after reading “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” by Alex Haley last year. She says Malcolm X discusses the importance of Black people traveling outside of the United States in the book.
“Being Haitian, I was very inspired to learn more about my personal connection to Africa while also having an American identity,” she says.
While in Ghana, Erner visited the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park and Mausoleum, named after the former Ghanaian president. She said his quote, “I’m not African because I was born in Africa, I’m African because Africa was born in me,” was the epiphany she took from her experience.
“Being in America, we’re taught so much of loss. Even now, politically speaking, so much is being taken from us,” she said. “And so to have the opportunity for that to be poured back in – by the people, by the land, by the culture – was spiritual. These things were happening physically around me, but I think more than anything I had the opportunity to be fulfilled spiritually.”
Erner is grateful to the Murphys for their help. “Having the YoFresh Foundation support my future without even seeing all that I would do motivates me to continue to give that same type of wisdom and energy to those coming up too,” she says.
Destiny Giwa-Finley
Destiny Giwa-Finley, 20, heard about the foundation from her mother, who works with community outreach at Oakton College. She received $1,000 from the YoFresh Foundation to participate in the Illinois State University study abroad program in Angers, France for the last four months of 2024.
She’d been to France once before for her 18th birthday, but she knew she wanted to go again.
“I’ve been learning French since I was in sixth or seventh grade,” Giwa-Finley said. “I thought it’d be nice to go back and see how much I’ve improved now that I’ve taken a college-level French class.”
Giwa-Finley was excited for the trip because she would be able to travel and complete her French minor at the same time. Once she arrived, however, her circumstances were less than ideal.
“I was the only Black student in my program,” she said. “It just felt isolating at times.”
This feeling was only exacerbated by her poor experience with the host mom she lived with for the first month, where she said she experienced microaggressions. She recalled when her host mom asked her to complete some chores, and she didn’t hear one of the tasks her host mom asked her to do. When confronted, Giwa-Finley said she forgot to because that was easier for her to say in French than explaining she didn’t hear her. She said her host mom snapped and began yelling at her. Giwa-Finley described another time when her host mom threatened to call the police on her.
“None of my friends got the gravity of that situation like a Black student would have – to call the cops on a Black girl who’s in a foreign country struggling to express herself,” she said.
While she had a great support system, Giwa-Finley believes having a Black student there would have given her a person to relate to. That’s why she finds the Murphys’ goal of cultivating and encouraging Black students to travel important.
Despite that, she still enjoyed her time in France. She recalled attending the Les Accroche-Cœurs Festival in September, which she described as a “crazy and happy” experience. The festival happens in Angers, France annually, and the festival Giwa-Finley experienced was fantasy-themed, featuring a large metal pegasus and other fantastical creatures.
The Murphys giving her the grant caused a butterfly effect, according to Giwa-Finley. Using the money she received, she attended an activity put on by her program where she met a close friend, whom she hopes to visit this summer in Kansas.
“If my mom had never shown me the YoFresh foundation, would I have gone on that trip, and would I have met one of my best friends today?” Giwa-Finley asked.
The Murphys have plans to expand the YoFresh foundation in the coming years. They’re partnered with Oakton College and offer aid to Black students that participate in the college’s one-month study abroad program to Accra, Ghana. They hope to also partner with ETHS and Northwestern University to help even more students.
“You see so many different things in the world, so why not have people travel?” Jean Murphy said. “You don’t have to be stuck in one place and do the same thing that you do all the time. The world’s a big oyster.”
