Boss Up Monday Spotlight: Ayanna Berry Is Funding the Journey, Not Just the Doorway
2 min read
In conversations about arts equity, access is often treated as the finish line. Get a child into the program and the problem is solved. Ayanna Berry, CEO and Founder of Echo Music and Arts Foundation, knows better.
Echo exists to cover the costs people rarely talk about. Not the visible ones. The quiet ones.
Uniforms. Reeds. Instrument maintenance. Travel. Concert attire. Fees that add up quickly and are almost never covered by school budgets. These expenses don’t show up in glossy brochures, but they quietly decide who gets to stay and who slips out of the program unnoticed.
For Berry, this wasn’t an abstract problem. It was personal. When her own children began playing woodwind instruments, the financial reality hit hard. Instrument rentals alone were overwhelming. Add reeds, pads, mouthpieces, and maintenance, and nurturing talent began to feel impossible without sacrifice elsewhere at home. Talent was never the issue. Access was.
That realization became Echo.
Rather than duplicating existing programs, Echo fills the gaps schools cannot. When resources are limited, the foundation asks one simple question: Will this expense determine whether the student can participate? If the answer is yes, it matters. Echo isn’t funding luxuries. It’s removing barriers.
Sometimes that barrier looks like a fresh set of reeds before a major performance. Sometimes it’s concert blacks so a student can stand on stage with confidence. Other times, it’s travel and lodging for festivals and competitions that can change a young artist’s trajectory.
Equity, Berry reminds us, isn’t just opening the door. It’s making sure students can walk through it and stay.
This Boss Up Monday spotlight is just the beginning. Ayanna Berry’s full interview and deeper insights into building Echo’s mission-driven impact will appear in the upcoming issue of Intellectual Ink Magazine.
