Dave Mecca

I started my professional career, in service to community, at the Pine Street Inn Homeless Shelter - from 1989 to 1991.

I also started my first non-profit during this time. I was raising money for a school in South Africa and producing Hip-Hop events. I found a way to support community through education; here in Boston, I found a way to support community during the rise of violence of the late eighties and early nineties by bringing different waring cliques together. Hip Hop was the language of entrepreneurism, justice, peace and empowerment; so I gravitated toward that tongue.

From 1997 – 2001, I developed a Hip-Hop Culture Center project, producing over 250 events, workshops, film screenings, concert, open forums, marketing teams, music conferences and tours. I worked with local promoters, various international brands, community activists, youth organizers, local businesses, local & national publications, street entrepreneurs and SXSW music conference to bring artists (i.e.) Dead Prez, Mix Master Mike, Outkast, Freeystyle Fellowship, M.O.P., GURU, Medusa, Doug E. Fresh, Chuck D, Atmosphere, De La Soul, Black Eye Peas, Phife, GZA, Kool Keith, Big Pun, Organized Konfusion and many more.

I had a rebirth in Boston, from 2001 – 2009, I became a live-in house manager for an adolescent independent living program. I also, collaborated with local hip-hop legends the Floorlords to open another hip-hip culture center project – servicing over 60 youth weekly with master classes in hip-hop arts & event production - that serve several communities. In addition, during this time, I opened another residential program servicing victims of violence that were paralyzed as a result of their injury.

Since 2009, my journey shifted into the trauma recovery space. I helped build Boston’s first community trauma response team then moved into the Streetworker Program leading the effort to support families & community suffering loss and the efforts to curb retaliatory violence. In 2011, I moved into the medical center space by building a violence recovery program for Brigham & Women’s Hospital.

The journey continued, in 2014, I went to UTEC in Lowell. UTEC is a workforce development program serving adolescents from the communities of Lowell, Lawrence and Haverhill struggling with gang involvement, incarceration and education. In 2017, I spent a year in Chicago building a violence recovery program at the University of Chicago Medical Center.