In the summer of 2006, author and musician Mike Ball called up folk music legend Josh White, Jr. and invited him to help write songs with a dozen incarcerated teenage boys. Ball had been leading creative writing workshops with these troubled but talented young men, and he wanted to extend this powerful creative outlet to roots music. Armed with a grant from the Michigan Humanities Council, the two walked into the WJ Maxey Boys Training School with no plan other than to write some songs.
From that seed grew Lost Voices. Seventeen years and more than 2,500 young lives touched by the Lost Voices experience later, Mike has been named a 2023 CNN Hero.
CNN bills their Heroes program as “Everyday people changing the world,” and Mike has certainly done that. He has led Lost Voices teams into residential placement centers all over Michigan, working with kids suffering from severe trauma due to abuse, neglect, addiction, violence, and human trafficking.
The roster of talented writers and performers who have worked in the project alongside Mike include Josh White, Kitty Donohoe, Jen Cass, Matt Watroba, Annie Capps, Samantha Cooper, Jill Jack, Mattijane Epperson, Reverend Robert Jones, Peter Madcat Ruth, Greater Alexander, Drew Nelson, and Anne Heaton.
Mike came up with the name “Lost Voices” after realizing that most of the world either knew nothing about all the troubled kids he deals with, or they consider them to no longer be worth an effort.“These children have endured a lot,” he said, “and sometimes they have gotten into serious trouble. But they are children. They will change, but that can be for better or for worse. When we open a musical door into their feelings and invite them to walk through it, they produce the most extraordinary creative work. They know that their voices have been heard, and they change for the better.”
Just in case you didn’t click on any of the photos and missed the link in the second paragraph, here is the full CNN Hero story on Lost Voices: https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/19/us/michigan-music-youth-trauma-songwriting-cnnheroes/index.html. CNN is not only spreading the word about Mike and his teams, they have set up a GoFundMe in his name to help Lost Voices grow and expand their mission.
