UMatter Foundation
You matter.
You have worth no one can take. You deserve to be seen and heard. Wherever you stand right now, there is hope.
What we stand on
Four things we will not move on
Everyone has worth
It cannot be earned, and it cannot be erased. It is simply true the day a person is born.
Everyone belongs
No one was meant to carry life alone. Connection is how people survive and grow.
No one is past hope
People heal, patterns break, and lives are rebuilt. We work like that is possible, because it is.
Love and truth, together
Met with grace and told the truth, in the same breath. Warmth and honesty are not opposites here.
What we do
We put worth within reach
Tools for the inner life
Hands-on ways to name what you feel and say it out loud, so feelings stop turning into walls.
Support for the carriers
Encouragement and resources for the people who pour out for others and rarely get poured into.
Programs that rebuild
Work on the ground that moves people from shutdown and survival toward connection and hope.
Whoever you are, wherever you have been, whatever you carry. You matter.
A voice that heals. A message that moves.
Churmell Mitchell is a global speaker, educator, author, and emotional clarity strategist who helps people rebuild from the inside out. His work strengthens families, schools, fatherhood and prevention programs, leadership teams, and faith communities, turning emotion into language and language into connection.
It started long before it had a name.
The mission did not begin in a boardroom. It began with a young man who left home early, found community where he could, and decided his story would not be the end of him.
At sixteen, I left home.
At sixteen, I left home and started my journey early. Those years taught me more about life than I could have learned any other way, and I never carried them alone. I had community around me, people who saw something in me and refused to let me fall through the cracks. I lived where I could, including a basement that kept a roof over my head, finished high school, and set my eyes on becoming the first in my family to earn a college degree.
Someone saw it before I could.
A high school mentor, former Ole Miss linebacker D.T. Shackelford, looked at me and saw what I could not yet see in myself. His words became my mantra: “You’re going to pick a different route, you’re going to college, and you will be a leader.” Sports were never just games to me. They were lifelines. I was named Offensive Player of the Year in football my senior season, proof that struggle could be turned into something that lasts.
A single father, in college, refusing to quit.
I came to Auburn to study kinesiology as a single father raising my two children. For more than three months I was homeless. My mother kept the kids while I found places to stay and worked multiple jobs, on and off campus, while carrying eighteen credit hours a semester. The goal never moved. Earn the degree. Wear the orange and blue. Build a different life for my children than the one I was handed.
The injury that ended one dream and revealed another.
As my dream of playing in Jordan-Hare came within reach, a patella tendon injury ended my athletic career. The staff in the School of Kinesiology carried me through it, helped with my children, and made sure I never abandoned my education. That season taught me the lesson the whole mission now rests on. I was never meant to navigate life alone, and neither is anyone else.
From the kitchen table to a movement.
Emotions You Know™ started at my own kitchen table, built from the conversations my family actually needed. A way to help children name what is hard to say, before it turns into something harder to undo. A Father’s Voice Matters grew from the same root, supporting fathers and families the way I once needed support. Faith, family, and purpose are not separate from this work. They are the foundation under all of it.
Athlete. Father. Speaker. Mentor. CEO.
The same story that almost ended me now opens doors. Recognition from a President of the United States, a national Father of the Year honor, an Auburn Black Alumni of the Year award, and a board seat appointed by the Governor of Alabama. I have gone from national stages to global stages, from schools and juvenile facilities to corporations and houses of worship. I use every room to do one thing. Bring hope to the broken, and give people the language to build, refill, and become again.
“The university didn’t just educate me. It transformed me, and equipped me to turn my adversities into strengths and use them to positively impact others.”
Three seeds became a movement.
You Matter did not begin as a foundation. It began as three seeds, planted in the same season of my life.
The first seed.
I came back to my faith in a season when I felt like I mattered to no one. What I found was a love that was never earned and never rationed. God's love is for everybody, the celebrated and the overlooked, the whole and the broken. If God says every single person matters, that stopped being a nice idea for me. It became the ground I had to build on.
The second seed.
The second seed was my own two children. I watched them carry weight that no child should have to hold, and I made them a promise they could feel. You matter. You matter for who you are, long before you achieve anything or survive anything. Everything I have built since is me keeping that promise for them, and then handing the same promise to every child who needs to hear it.
The third seed.
The third seed was a truth I could not unsee. Everyone is carrying something, and everyone has a story. We have all been through something, we are all healing from something, and that makes every one of us a lived expert. Your story is the credential, and it counts. You Matter exists to draw that story out of people, and to let them draw it out of me.
2024 Casey Family Programs Birth Parent Father of the Year
“We work with a lot of single fathers who feel like there is no support for them. So what we do is find those resources and partnerships in our community to help them.”
Casey Family Programs is the nation’s largest operating foundation focused on safely reducing the need for foster care and building Communities of Hope. Their national Excellence for Children Awards honor leaders across the child welfare system. In 2024 Churmell was named Birth Parent Father of the Year for the work he leads through A Father’s Voice Matters, finding resources and partnerships that help single fathers stay present in their children’s lives.
The partnership runs deeper than a single award. Churmell has contributed to Casey’s body of work as a featured voice with lived experience, adding a birth father’s perspective to the national conversation on prevention, family engagement, and keeping children connected to the people who love them.
Watch the story → Casey Excellence Awards
Honored for the work, grounded in the rooms.
The President’s Lifetime Achievement Award
Awarded under President Joe Biden of the United States, in recognition of a lifetime of service and measurable impact in communities. It sits at the center of a body of work that runs from early childhood and fatherhood to leadership and emotional wellness, and it reflects thousands of hours given to the people most systems overlook.
One mission, several front doors.
Each brand is a different way into the same work: helping people feel it, name it, and rebuild from it.
A conversation-based tool that gives families, schools, and teams the language to name what they feel before they act on it.
A nonprofit strengthening fathers and families through engagement, presence, prevention, and safe spaces.
The growth and lifestyle arm of the work, built on one truth: you cannot pour from empty. Step back, refill, become.
Premium content and creative direction, including the team behind the Season 25 winner of NBC’s The Voice.
Practical, relationship-centered books that help people rebuild healthy patterns and live with intention.
Same framework. Different room.
Most performance problems are emotional clarity gaps, not strategy failures. Each keynote installs the language and the systems that restore connection, tuned to the audience in the room.
From Reaction to Clarity
The emotional vocabulary that turns conflict and shutdown into communication, for any room.
A Father’s Voice Matters
Engagement, presence, and prevention. Why fathers are not optional, and how to bring them back.
Leading Under Pressure
Human-centered leadership, psychological safety, and culture when the stakes are high.
Climate, Behavior & Connection
For schools and districts. Reducing escalation by building emotional literacy in staff and students.
Hope for the Broken
The testimony. From hard beginnings to honored, and what it teaches about resilience, faith, and purpose.
Build. Refill. Become.
Burnout, refilling, and identity. Why you cannot lead, parent, or build from empty.
It is transformation.
“Churmell didn’t just inspire our parents. He transformed the room. People left ready to rebuild their families.”
“Our staff said it was the best PD we’ve had in years. Practical, human, and emotionally powerful.”
“This message needs to be heard everywhere. He connects with every audience: youth, parents, and professionals.”
“It wasn’t motivational fluff. It was deep, real, and life-changing.”
Bring this voice to your stage.
Tell me about the room you are trying to change. We scope it to your goals, your timeline, and your funding cycle.
Book a Conversation →
Listen · Reflect · Share
My Testimony.
My Testimony is where real people open up about healing, faith, fatherhood, and the long road to becoming. Come listen, or come tell yours.
Apple Podcasts · Spotify · YouTube
The network
Part of a five-show network
A Father’s Voice Matters
Presence, healing, and legacy.
▶ Listen nowMy Testimony
Rock bottom to breakthrough.
▶ Listen now
A Mother’s Voice Matters
Truth, strength, and restoration.
▶ Listen now
Emotions You Know™
Emotional intelligence, made plain.
▶ Listen now
What Kids Say Today
The next generation, unfiltered.
▶ Listen nowOur programs
Where the work lives
The mission shows up in focused programs, each with its own community and its own front door.
A Father’s Voice Matters
Healing-centered presence, prevention, and stronger communication for fathers and the families they lead.
A Mother’s Voice Matters
The same healing-centered structure for mothers and women carrying the emotional load of the home.
The people behind the mission.
The You Matter Foundation is built by a team that lives this work. Leadership, programs, partnerships, and the people who keep worth, dignity, and hope at the center of everything we do.
Governance and direction.
The board guides the vision, stewardship, and long-term impact of the mission.
Daniel Ibinola
Frazelma Lynn
Skip Long
Mateo Arenas
Joseph Murray
Melissa Arenas
Tina Brown
Greg Davenport
Roger De Leon
Josh Anders
Valencia Yancy
Cedric Torbert
Nick Brown
Take the conversation home.
The storytelling card game that helps kids name what they feel, build confidence, and connect. Pick your game below, every box ships in your language.
Emotions You Know™ — Single Game
The conversation card game that started it all. For home, the table, and the people you love.
Emotions You Know™ — 6-Game Pack
Six games for classrooms, programs, teams, and family circles. The most loved way to start the conversation at scale.
Need more than six? Schools & bulk orders →
Take the feelings off the table and onto the page.
Coloring and activity books built on Emotions You Know™. Get the instant digital download to print at home, the paperback shipped to your door, or the keepsake hardcover.
Emotions You Know™ Coloring Book for Kids
Emotion characters to color, with a color-test page and a name page. Built for younger hands and big feelings.
Emotions You Know™ Activity Book for Kids
Alphabet tracing, number tracing, word matching, and more, all wrapped around naming emotions.
Emotions You Know™ Coloring Book for Adults
Bold, expressive emotion art for grown-ups to slow down, color, and reset.
Books built around every path
Devotionals, workbooks, prayer journals, and question decks for every Refill path. The full library is on the way.
Refill Each Other
Heal, communicate, and grow together.
Refill Him & Refill Her
Pour into the one you love.
Refill Your Children
Refill, restore, and reconnect.
Refill Your Students
Refill their hearts and confidence.
Refill You
Small steps that pour back into you.
Refill Your Leaders
Lead with heart, intention, and purpose.
At the Well
A journey back to the source.
The Complete Refill Library
All 34 books across all 7 series, in one digital library.
How to play the game.
Watch the quick walkthrough, then grab the rules, the quick start guide, or a free coloring page in your language.
A six-step emotional journey.
No reading required. Just colors, emojis, stories, and movement that walk kids from a big feeling all the way to owning it.
Feel It
Notice the big feeling.
Name It
Give the feeling a word.
Say It
Share it out loud.
Shift It
Move toward calm.
Move It
Let it move through you.
Own It
You’ve got this.
Big feelings deserve safe spaces.
Name what they feel
Kids build the vocabulary to understand and name emotions, the foundation calm conversations are built on.
Share it safely
Hard feelings get a safe way out, so kids say the thing instead of shutting down or acting out.
Build empathy & resilience
When kids feel heard, they learn to listen. One honest moment becomes lasting trust.
Bringing it to a group? Let’s talk.
For schools, districts, churches, youth programs, nonprofits, and organizations putting Emotions You Know™ in more hands. Tell us what you need and we will follow up with quantity pricing.
- ✓ Bulk discounts at any quantity
- ✓ In-kind statements for schools and partners
- ✓ Purchase orders and invoicing welcome
- ✓ Available in English, Portuguese, and Spanish
Tell us about your group
Send your inquiry and we will follow up about quantity and pricing, usually within one business day.
Send my inquiryA free coloring page
Print one for the kids while the game ships. Color it together, then talk about the feelings on the page. Free in three languages.
Every purchase helps fund games for children and families who need them.
These games reach families and homes around the globe, giving children and the people beside them a safe space to be heard.
Donate or sponsor gamesBe part of it
Help one more person know they matter
Every gift and every partnership puts worth, words, and support within reach of someone who needs it.
Book a Conversation
Let’s talk
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Tell your story on My Testimony
Share a little about you and what you would want to talk about. Every request comes straight to the team.