Category Archives: Education

Feel Good Friday | Teen Donates Prize- Winning Pizza to Homeless Shelter

Let’s be honest, Friday couldn’t come fast enough amirite?

Well the frickin’ weekend isn’t the only reason to slap a smile on your exhausted face.

Here’s another. Detroit native Hannah Spooner won $500 dollars worth of free Little Caesar’s pizzas through a contest.

Instead of throwing an epic pizza party for friends, family and neighbors, the 19-year-old exercised the art of paying it forward by donating her prize to the local Covenant House Michigan shelter for homeless young kids.

The Huffington Post reports Hannah scoped out a number of charities and orgs before settling on Covenant House.

The shelter’s organizers are more than grateful with her decision.

“Our kids would eat pizza everyday,” Melissa Golpe, the shelter’s PR director told, The Huffington Post. “We have a number of generous people that do really special things for our kids.”

Little Caesar’s did one more thing, the pizza chain threw a free pizza party at the shelter during the shelter’s Total Me Program, where local college kids mentor teens at Covenant House,when they got wind of the story.

 

MCM | T.I. Donates $35K to Six Education Initiatives

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Tip is a man of his word.

When the ATL-based rapper signed on to promote  TIDAL’s Money Talk and Education challenge–that encourages charities to fundraise for education programs in different communities–in May, he put his checkbook on the line.

 

The “Whatever You Like” lyricist and father of seven (the newest addition is babygirl Heiress) agreed to match all funds raised.

The Undefeated reports eighty-six orgs took on the challenge from May 4 to June 15. Only six became finalists, which brought in $46,000 combined. In turn T.I. donated $36,000. For a grand total of…

Drum roll please…

…$81,000.

 

So which charities put a dent in the VH1 (“T.I. and Tiny: The Family Hustle”) reality star’s wallet?

ESSENCE gave us a breakdown on the six orgs.

Fate Loves The Fearless — Education and mentorship program to help Detroit youths excel in school; funds raised will go toward the renovation of a new facility.

Shaw Inspires “Teen-Preneurs” — In-school, after-school, weekend and summer mentoring and leadership program for youth ages 11-25; funds raised will help the program expand to Baltimore and Charleston, South Carolina.

The Musicianship’s 2016 Summer Camp — Summer camp that provides music lessons for young people; funds will be used to buy instruments, supplies, support music instructors and provide a college scholarship.

Generation You Employed — Program that helps unemployed youths with skills and job readiness in five countries (Kenya, India, Spain, Mexico and the United States); it plans to train 1 million unemployed young people and place them in jobs by 2020; funds raised will go toward expanding into Chicago, Los Angeles and New York City.

Educate Me College Tour — Annual tour of historically black colleges and universities provides cultural and educational experiences that inspire students to examine concerns and personal interests during their college selection process.

Truancy Intervention Project (TIP) 25th Anniversary — The dropout prevention agency partners trained community volunteers with children in the Atlanta and Fulton County public school systems who are chronically absent from school and, as a result, either become involved in the juvenile court or referred for early intervention at the school level.

Good job, Tip. <<salute>>

IYB Women Crush Wednesday | MC Lyte Donates 50K to Aspiring College Student

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OG rapper MC Lyte surprised a super fan (if he wasn’t before, certainly is now) with a $50K college scholarship on “The Steve Harvey Show” today.

Why was it during the mustachioed  showman’s hour long chat fest?

Because the lucky recipent of MC Lyte’s philanthropy hails from Harvey’s mentoring camp. Twice blessed!!.

The first female emcee presented 19-year-old Cortney Rhodes with a $50,000 college scholarship, upon hearing his academic sights were set on Dillard University in New Orleans–one of the oldest HBCUs.

Watch here to see Cortney and his mom learn the happy news.

The “Lyte as a Rock” rapper’s donation is through her non profit–Hip Hop Sisters Foundation. The org’s aim is to give scholarship money to worthy students through their #EducateOurMen Intiative.

As the daughter of a school teacher, MC Lyte learned the value of education and its benefits in the long run. Even for a rapper. She shares what her mom made her do.

I was her number one student so at all costs, I was her pupil and I had to write essays for everything I wanted to do including: go to the hip hop club, going to the studio…I became a great essay writer.

I guess so with all those essays. But, it was worth it because not only is she hip hop royalty (bow down, bitches) MC Lyte is our girl crush of the week.

Feel Good Friday | 200 Black Men Cheering on Back-to-School Kids

Let's get this school year started right.

Back-to-school motivation from some dapper Dans as kids enter first day of school.

In my best 50 cent “In Da Club” voice…

Go shawty…it’s a school day…we gonna cheer ya on while you stud-yyy. 

Okay, that’s likely not what nearly 100 black Hartford, CT-based businessmen were chanting as local kids attended their first day of school on Tuesday.

The kids–mostly from single-parent homes–were greeted by a tribe (it takes a village, remember) of lawyers, cops, politicians, artists, activists commemorating the back-to-school milestone with high-fives and applause lined up outside their school.  As if they were on the starting lineup of the UConn Huskies rather than  elementary students entering Martin Luther King Junior School. Simultaneously, the same scene was recreated at Simpson Waverly School, a half-mile away.

Local pastor AJ Johnson, pal DeVaughn Ward and community activist Maurice Eastwood banded together to turn an idea on social media into a reality.

Pastor Johnson says the idea was to get 200 Black men to the elementary schools to give kids an inspiring welcome that could foster them throughout the year.

“Most of the kids there are raised by single moms, and you can see that as they were being dropped off, a lot of them had their moms drop them off,” Johnson said. “I think that this is an opportunity for educated black men to go in and grab a young man and show them what it really means to be a black male.”

Feel Good Friday | Shape-Ups, Stories and Scholarships

barber_0_1439548519Summer may be coming to an end ( say it ain’t so) but looking fierce for the first day of school just got more interesting.

An Iowan barber offered the best back-to-school special around: free haircuts to kids that read to him.

Courtney Holmes told Power 105.1 the free promotion is to help the community of Dubuque, Iowa prepare for the upcoming school year.

And as for the eight minute stories as payment?

“I just want to support kids reading,” Holmes said in a statement.

He’s not the only one. King James announced he’s working with University of Akron to sponsor 1,100 full college scholarships through his Family Foundation. The kids are required to complete the “I Promise” program of the foundation–vowing to maintain good grades and attendance, give back to the community–before getting the free ride.

The children range from the third to seventh grades in the program. Current seventh graders are likely to take advantage of LeBron picking up the $9500 tuition tab, if the promise is kept.

Wow Wednesday | Tyrese Picks Up Stranger’s College Tab

tyresezoThe 40 or 50 G’s Zo–Compton-based high school graduate–needed to attend the Black man’s Harvard (Morehouse College) came straight outta Tyrese’s wallet.

Yes, that Tyrese. The subway serenader, the R&B rebel with a cause to revive baby-making music is also investing in future scholars. Like Zo, who took to Instagram to boast about Tyrese’s generosity.

“As of today I begin my journey as a man of Morehouse. I am beyond grateful and thankful to be apart of such a great legacy. None of this would be possible without God, @tyrese, the support from my family and of course, my relentless hard work.” Zo captions underneath an Instagram photo of himself, Tyrese and Rev Run.

He adds, “annually, Morehouse is around 45K-50K and as you can imagine, that is a lot of money. I thank God for placing Tyrese in my life. It is because of him believing in me and investing in my future, that I am able to receive my education.”

The “Black Rose” crooner was motivated to help Zo with his higher learning after listening to Tom Joyner’s 2015 BET Awards acceptance speech. In which the renowned radio personality boasted he put 30,000 Black kids in college with over 65 million dollars donated through his HBCU org.

“…and I decided at that MOMENT I needed to DO something….it’s all about the #Start and this young kid is #StraightOuttaCompton and he started his first day in college yesterday.”

Way to pay it forward, Tyrese aka Vision Implementer (it’s what he calls himself.)

FEEL GOOD FRIDAY | Michelle Obama, Wale Urge Kids to ‘Beat the Odds’

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Just when you think FLOTUS can’t get any cooler, she ups her fab factor. In addition to giving the Oscar selfie some major competition (take that Internet!) Michelle Obama created a summit to help kids better transition into college.

The  “Beating the Odds” summit invited 130 soon-to-be college frosh to the White House. All from different walks of life, but one common denominator is they all struggled to make it into college, which means they’ll likely have more difficulty staying.

Cue Michelle Obama’s Reach Higher Initiative that gives first gen college students–like herself and POTUS–the support and tools they need to make it through all four years.

To give her a hand, Entertainment network’s Terrence J, Grammy-nominated rapper Wale shared his story of goofing off in college in hopes of getting into the NFL. The Chicago Sun Times reports Wale eventually ended up on academic probation, but college gave him a good foundation to be “self-made.”

Before Wale hopped on the stage to perform, POTUS Barack Obama introduced him and made this confession.

My rapping skills are terrible. That’s one thing I can’t do is rap. I like rap but I cannot rap.

But he had to do something right to pull Michelle, he added.

I got enough of a rap that I got Michelle to marry me.

Bloop. Yes, you did Mr. Prez.

Good luck, class of 2020 (God, I’m old)