DollarBoyz is more than just its members' break moves. The group hosts movie trips, cookouts, bowling nights, and parties throughout Philadelphia in addition to having a large social media presence. It's not uncommon for the Facebook statuses of the group's rising stars to receive several hundred likes in an hour, said Dumas.
Created as a for-profit company in 2005, DollarBoyz Inc. has become a youth movement whose CEO is equal parts organizer, older brother, and inspiration.
"We have to reach them where they are, and that is exactly what Tyree does," said John Brice, a colleague of Dumas' and a Philadelphia program manager at the national mentoring initiative CBM Cares. "He uses hip-hop; he teaches them about being self-motivated. When we go out, we're wearing the same T-shirts, and he teaches them about equality."
Dumas, who last month received a $35,000 Black Male Engagement project grant from the Knight Foundation, founded DollarBoyz at age 14 under the umbrella of his nonprofit Y-NOT, "Youth Now on Top." He wanted to target his own demographic of students who were not interested in traditional nonprofits and who would often find camaraderie in gangs and drug dealing instead of school.
"At the end of the day, a drug dealer on the corner will care about you, but for all the wrong reasons," he said in a recent interview.
At first, Dumas' idea to give young people another option was simple: Get a group of his cousins together to shoot dance videos. Now, DollarBoyz' YouTube videos have six million views total, and from 30 to 100 youths contact Dumas per week, he said, including his first international student, from the United Kingdom, last week.
Dumas' friends and family attribute his success with DollarBoyz to his relative closeness in age to the group's members and his commitment to a phone that rings constantly with requests for help.
