Devion Bedford

Founder & Executive Director, Product of Poverty

Devion Bedford is the Founder and Executive Director of Product of Poverty, a nonprofit created from lived experience and built on the belief that a person's circumstances should never determine the limits of their future.

Raised by a single mother, Devion grew up experiencing many of the challenges that affect families in underserved communities. Football gave him structure and an outlet throughout his childhood and high school years, but after being expelled from school, his life took a different direction. He became involved in the streets and experienced repeated incarceration, eventually receiving a federal prison sentence.

His journey also included surviving being shot, stabbed, and run over. But some of his greatest lessons came not from what happened to him, but from confronting the consequences of his own decisions.

Federal incarceration became a period of reflection, accountability, and transformation. As a father, Devion began looking beyond his own circumstances and thinking about the cycles affecting children and families in communities like the one that raised him. He recognized that many young people are not lacking potential—they are lacking consistent access to mentorship, resources, opportunity, and people willing to intervene before a bad decision becomes a life-altering one.

That realization became Product of Poverty.

Today, Devion is committed to transforming lived experience into community impact. Product of Poverty works to strengthen individuals and families through interconnected areas of support, including youth and family services, workforce development, housing assistance, financial literacy, mental health and wellness, and reentry support.

His vision is not simply to help people survive difficult circumstances. It is to help create pathways toward stability, independence, leadership, and generational change.

Devion's past gives him the ability to reach people from a place of understanding rather than judgment. He knows firsthand that incarceration, poverty, violence, and poor decisions can become chapters in a person's story without becoming the conclusion.

“I don't want my past erased. I want it to have purpose. If what I've lived through can help a young person make a different decision, help a parent keep their family together, or help someone returning home believe they still have a future, then my story becomes bigger than me.”

Through Product of Poverty, Devion's mission is clear: meet people where they are, provide the resources and opportunities to move forward, and help build stronger individuals, stronger families, and stronger communities.

Because regardless of a person's circumstances, mistakes, or situation, everyone deserves an opportunity for help.