Five Acres in Pasadena California is group home for “at risk” kids, on their last stop before being institutionalized in a juvenile detention center or another bastion of the criminal justice system. Matthew saw the potential of giving these kids a creative outlet and new means of self-expression by introducing them to the power of poetry – he just needed help figuring out exactly how that would work. Within moments of sitting down to write out his ideas, Matthew was approached by fellow HATCHer Jenny Sheets, asking him to ‘teach her how to perform poetry.’ They both saw it as a “sign” from the Universe and decided to sit together and ‘crush this idea’ of creating the poetry slam. Forty minutes later they completed an outline for the event and how it would work. From that initial conversation, 5 Jamma Slamma was born. Following HATCH, Matthew returned to Los Angeles and pitched his newly HATCHed idea to the Five Acres administrative team. He then personally matched the $5k budget the organization had to invest in the project, and got to work producing the event. He started by asking other artists to help mentor the 5 Acres kids. He called on several internationally recognized slam poets and musicians to bring their talents to bear. Steve Connell (Hatch newbie 2017) and Butterscotch (HATCH alumni) as well as a dozen others artist, answered the call to action.