MO WILEY

BAY AREA HIP HOP ARTIST, ACTIVIST

AND CONCERNED MOM HOLDS PRESS

CONFERENCE ON CRUCIAL CHILD SAFETY

ISSUE AT CORVALLIS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

IN SAN LEANDRO TUESDAY

SEPTEMBER 22 at 8:15 A.M.

The San Leandro Resident Invites Mayor Tony Santos,

School Board Members And A Former Crossing Guard

To Event Protesting City Budget Cuts

That Would Eliminate School Crossing Guards

A dedicated political activist and devoted mother as well as one of the Bay Area’s most dynamic emerging hip hop artists, Mo Wiley will be holding an emergency press conference in her hometown of San Leandro, California to protest city budget cuts that would eliminate school crossing guards.

The event is scheduled to take place on Tuesday, September 22 at 8:15 a.m. in a crosswalk in front of Corvallis Elementary School, where her 10 year old child attends school. Invited guests include San Leandro mayor Tony Santos, members of the San Lorenzo School District Board, and Juan Contreras, a 19-year San Leandro crossing guard who will offer his testimony on the importance of crossing guards and the role they play in keeping the community’s children safe. Wiley will be speaking on behalf of the local PTA.

The City of San Leandro recently announced that they were cutting their budget for elementary school crossing guards in the city’s two school districts, the San Leandro Unified School District and the San Lorenzo Unified School District. While this program has long been run by the San Leandro Police Department, the city is trying to shift the responsibility for child safety onto the already cash-strapped school districts.

Wiley and her fellow concerned citizens by attending important City Council Members, have been able to get the city to reconsider this crucial public safety decision, and maybe we should consider opening up the CIP improvements, possibly by special election, to the citizens of

San Leandro. They are urging the city not to let the safety of the community’s children to rest entirely on the school districts. Residents can sign an online petition at www.mowiley.com ^[1].

“The city manager said on September 17 in a city meeting that he has an emergency public safety fund, and they want to city to use it and create an Emergency Public Safety Fund for these crossing guards until they can come up with a workable solution with both districts. Ultimately, we want the city to shoulder half the costs and responsibility, because we believe the districts should be in the business of educating our children, not public safety. It’s crucial that they put an interim program in place. Kids can get hit while waiting for these entities to come to an agreement!”

Wiley, a onetime EMT tech in the Austin, Texas Children’s Hospital pediatric ICU, is driven by the memory of a child who came into the emergency room dead on arrival from being hit by a car in a crosswalk WITH a crossing guard. “The U.S. Department of Transportation says that thousands of children between the ages of 5-15 years are injured and killed each year before and after school hours due to auto-pedestrian accidents,” she says. “Children’s cognitive skills between the ages of 5-9 are not developed enough to keep them from darting out in front of traffic, let alone watch for multiple cars at many intersections.”

Wiley, whose 11 year old attends Washington Manor Middle School, is currently volunteering every day to help cross the children at Corvallis—along with several other volunteer teachers and parents in San Leandro. Drawing on her recording and performing background, she is also creating an educational DVD dedicated to educating parents and children on safe routes to school and how to stay safe crossing streets when there is traffic as well as safety and strangers. The video will include a new version of her hit single “You Can’t Touch It (‘Less I Say So)”, which she calls “You Can’t Cross (‘Less I Say So).”

Wiley is keeping busy with numerous exciting entrepreneurial activities as she awaits the upcoming release of Major League Ballin’, her highly anticipated debut due to drop this fall on Kent Entertainment’s First Kut Records.

In August, the multi-talented performer (www.myspace.com/missmowiley ^[2]) was down in L.A. shooting a video for the track with director Ian Fletcher, whose credits include the clip for DJ Quik’s “Tonight’s The Night.” Building on the momentum of her opening gig in May for Wu-Tang Clan’s Cappadonna at the 24K Lounge, Wiley performed on August 2 at the King of the Streets 2009 Car Show Tour at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park on a bill with Layzie Bone of Bone Thugs N Harmony, The Jacka and Mellow Man Ace. She is planning a tour centered on performances for U.S Troops for later this year and into 2010.

In 2008, the artist incorporated with several partners the Mo Wiley Children’s Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to feeding, sheltering and educating our youth. While the organization’s ultimate aim is to start an orphanage and a rehab facility for both parents and children to straighten out their lives and be productive members of society, the foundation is currently involved on a local level with several schools in San Leandro. Wiley would like to work with the district to help a choir class at one of the schools write six original songs; she will then donate the original beats and music along with 1,000 CDs of the songs for the school to sell at their annual concert to raise money for the music program.

“In a recession, I think we all have to think of creative ways for coming up with funding as well as learning,” she says. “I hope this is a project that will grow.”

Inspired by the negative media and blogosphere attention received by Oakland in the wake of the March, 2009 shooting of four OPD police officers by a single assailant, Wiley—believing that the city has many good children and families—recently launched a second community based organization called For The Streets, by The Streets Youth Foundation; its mission is to serve the needs of at risk inner city kids. Wiley and her cohorts are currently putting together a series of fundraiser activities to raise money for the foundation, which will include age appropriate live musical performances and activities. Brand new school clothes, school supplies and backpacks will be given away at these events.