Dr. Meeks came to Denver in 1989 and co-founded the Moyo Nguvu Cultural Arts Center, Inc. When Moyo was just five years old, he purchased its first building in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. Two years later he sold and purchased a second larger facility. Since Moyo’s inception, more than 2,000 youth have graduated from Dr. Meeks’ nationally recognized Children’s Rites of Passage program. Many of these youth have pursued post-college and graduate education with an emphasis on social entrepreneurship, health sciences, and the arts. Through his School Visions program, Dr. Meeks conducted workshops, seminars, and classes in every school district in the Denver metro area, resulting in more than 25,000 direct youth contacts per year. In 2008, Dr. Meeks launched the Healthy Youth Healthy Futures program with funding from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. This program aimed to reduce health disparities in Black and Latino communities and reached over 10,000 people.
Since 1990, the Moyo Cultural Arts Center hosted the largest public Kwanzaa Karimu. It quickly became the largest celebration in the western region with an average of 1,200-1,500 attendees in the late 90s and early 2000s. Meanwhile, the Moyo Arts Ensemble performed at some of the most prestigious venues, arts fairs and festivals in Colorado reaching on average an additional 20,000 persons annually.
Dr. Meeks has designed programs, rites of passage and youth programs, and youth mentorship programs for other organizations around the country. He was an expert in the area of youth leadership, training and health, having received national recognition for these programs.
Media have featured him in local and national publications, and on television for his community work. Dr. Meeks has received Urban Colors Arts and Mentoring “Lifetime Achievement Award” (2017), the Nation of Islam’s Doing for Self Award for his “Outstanding achievements and services to self and community” (2011), The African American Leadership Institute Mountain Award for his “Contributions in Human Services” (2004), Channel 7’s Everyday Hero Award (January 2003), noted in Urban Spectrum newspaper (2004) as African Americans Who Make a Difference. Was also featured in the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News in the early 1990s as one of the African Americans who is a “Mover and Shaker”.