Armani Taylor is the Founder and President of Rising Stars Restored Hope, a nonprofit organization created to empower young people, support families, strengthen communities, and reinvest resources into the people and communities that need them most.

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Armani has dedicated more than eight years to serving others as a Firefighter/Paramedic with the Prince George’s County Fire/EMS Department. Through his career in the fire service, he has witnessed firsthand the challenges families face during emergencies and the difficult process of rebuilding that often continues long after first responders leave. Seeing what families experience both in real time and behind the scenes strengthened his commitment to helping others and became an important part of the vision behind Rising Stars Restored Hope.

Before joining the Prince George’s County Fire/EMS Department, Armani gained valuable experience in community engagement, recreation, marketing, and youth-focused programming through his work with the Prince George’s Parks & Recreation Foundation and at the PG Plaza Community Center. His experience included serving as an intern, marketing specialist, and career program specialist. These roles provided him with an early foundation in community-based programming and firsthand experience creating opportunities, connecting people with resources, and positively impacting young people and families.

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Armani is also a former NCAA Division III collegiate basketball student-athlete who competed for four years while attending Lycoming College. During his collegiate career, he was part of a Mid-Atlantic Conference (MAC) championship team and served as a basketball captain. His experience competing at the collegiate level helped develop the discipline, leadership, teamwork, accountability, and perseverance that continue to shape his approach to mentorship, service, and organizational leadership today.

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His connection to basketball has continued well beyond his playing career. Armani serves as a middle school and high school basketball official and leads the Atlantic Regional Officials Association, an organization focused on developing basketball officials and serving schools and athletic programs throughout the DMV region. Having experienced the game as a collegiate athlete, championship team member, captain, official, and organizational leader, Armani understands the opportunities athletics can create and remains passionate about helping young people benefit from those opportunities both on and off the court.

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Service has remained a consistent part of Armani’s life. As a member of Mount Calvary Church in Forestville, Maryland, he participated in numerous church, school, and community outreach initiatives. His service included volunteering for Market Day, preparing and packaging meals for individuals experiencing homelessness, and supporting other efforts designed to assist families and individuals throughout the community. These experiences reinforced his belief that meaningful change begins with people who are willing to give their time, resources, and talents in service to others.

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Armani founded Rising Stars Restored Hope after recognizing a significant gap between the resources generated through athletics and community events and the amount that ultimately makes its way back to the athletes, families, and communities those events depend upon. Through his experiences in community programming, public safety, collegiate athletics, basketball officiating, and volunteer service, he saw an opportunity to create a different model—one centered on purpose, service, and reinvestment.

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His vision is to use athletics as more than competition or an event-driven business. Through Rising Stars Restored Hope, sporting events and programs can become vehicles for community reinvestment—creating high-quality experiences while generating resources that can support youth development, educational opportunities, families experiencing hardship, community programs, and other meaningful initiatives.

Armani believes that the athletes and communities at the heart of sporting events should have an opportunity to benefit from the success those events generate. Instead of allowing all resources to flow away from the communities that help make these experiences possible, Rising Stars Restored Hope seeks to create a model where a meaningful portion of that success is circulated back into athletes, families, schools, and community initiatives.

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Armani understands that changing established systems can be difficult, particularly when financial interests are involved. However, the principle behind his vision is simple: when athletes, families, schools, coaches, officials, volunteers, businesses, and communities come together to make an event successful, that success should create opportunities that extend beyond the final game.

Rather than allowing the impact of an event to end when the scoreboard reaches zero, Armani wants Rising Stars Restored Hope to transform participation and success into lasting community impact. His goal is to create a sustainable cycle in which athletics creates opportunity, opportunity generates resources, and those resources are reinvested into the people who make those opportunities possible.

Through Rising Stars Restored Hope, Armani is bringing together his experiences in community programming, public service, collegiate athletics, basketball leadership, youth development, and community outreach to build an organization centered on service, opportunity, and giving back. His mission is not simply to host events, but to create a platform capable of developing young people, supporting families, strengthening communities, and restoring hope.

Play. Give. Rebuild.