The Evolved Network honors the legacies of your father, William White Jr., and your aunt, Gwendolyn Barjon. How do their lives and lessons live on through your work?
Everything The Evolved Network stands for — every seed we plant, every meal we share, every child we witness — carries their fingerprints.
My Aunt Gwen taught me that learning should be lived. She didn’t believe in separating the head from the hands or the heart. Whether it was through storytelling, hands-on projects, or just making space for joy, she understood that kids learn best when they’re allowed to feel, create, and explore. She had this wild brilliance and an unshakable belief in the potential of children. And she rooted that belief in the land — in growing things, touching the earth, building something real with what was around you. She didn’t need permission to teach — she lived as a teacher. Her legacy is present in every moment a young person in our program discovers their own curiosity and feels the freedom to follow it.
My father, William, was the steady one. The foundation. He had a quiet strength that made people feel like they could return to themselves just by being near him. He didn’t try to change you — he just met you where you were, fully and without judgment. That kind of presence taught me what attachment really means: not control, but companionship. Not telling someone who they should be, but offering them a place safe enough to figure it out. His way of loving — consistently, without performance — is the heart of our work at TEN. It’s why we say being seen is more powerful than being fixed.
Together, their lives gave me the blueprint: Gwen gave me wonder and William gave me grounding. One taught me how to reach; the other how to stay. And so much of our work lives in that tension — in helping young people stretch toward who they’re becoming, while also offering them the rootedness to know they’re already enough.
Their spirits live on in our programming, but more than that — they live on in our posture. In how we slow down. In how we listen. In how we show up not to save, but to accompany. Every time a child feels joy in the garden, every time they light up from making something they didn’t think they could — that’s Gwen. And every time they feel safe enough to be real, even for a moment — that’s my father.
"My Aunt Gwen taught me that learning should be lived. She didn’t believe in separating the head from the hands or the heart."