Inspiring Minds detected no concerns with former leader Tim Frost

YOUNGSTOWN

Deryck Toles, founder and CEO of Inspiring Minds, said Tim Frost, the suspended executive director of the organization’s Youngstown program, was doing “a great job,” and so were the young people in the program.

“Everything’s been going great and still is,” Toles said Thursday in an interview after Frost’s arrest Sunday on East Indianola Avenue on drug trafficking and other charges.

Toles said he has worked closely with Frost, 35, since hiring him last year to run the Youngstown program.

“We never saw anything of concern,” Toles said.

“All we saw from Tim was that he loved Youngstown and he loved the kids,” said Toles, who started Inspiring Minds in 2006 in Warren.

The organization had its first Youngstown summer program last year and is operating its after-school program for students in kindergarten through grade 8 in the Wilson and Harding buildings in the Youngstown schools.

There are 300 children in the Warren program and 100 in the Youngstown program.

Inspiring Minds offers underserved youth opportunities and motivates them to succeed in school and life.

Toles said “two great coordinators” are running the programs in the two Youngstown schools. And, an interim executive director, Lindsay Benton, who is “rooted” in Youngstown, has been appointed to replace Frost.

Toles said he played football against Frost in high school and got re-acquainted with him around 2006, when Frost was coaching football in Youngstown.

Read more about the program and the situation in Friday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.