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THE<br />
PEARSON<br />
Foundation<br />
Melanie McMillan<br />
A few minutes of the nightly news or a quick perusal of social<br />
media can easily put one in a negative state of mind. With no shortage<br />
of bad news, it’s easy to become discouraged by what seems like<br />
insurmountable problems. In this climate, it’s especially refreshing to<br />
hear about those who seek to change the status quo. And it should<br />
come as no surprise to learn about such efforts in Rankin County.<br />
Case in point is The PEARSON Foundation (People Employing<br />
Available Resources to Strengthen Our Neighborhoods), founded in<br />
2000 by a group of like-minded individuals burdened by the problems<br />
they saw plaguing their community. Rather than standing by wringing<br />
their hands over the state of affairs, they came together with a vision<br />
to provide services designed to positively impact people’s lives and<br />
transform the community. Eighteen years later, the PEARSON<br />
Foundation in Pearl is still changing the neighborhoods it serves,<br />
one family at a time.<br />
From its inception, The PEARSON Foundation’s focus has been<br />
to strengthen families and confront the issues of substance abuse,<br />
teen pregnancies, school dropouts, unemployment, and other related<br />
problems. Although the Foundation serves the entire community,<br />
its work is concentrated in the Pearson, Carver, Oak Grove, and<br />
Greenfield communities of Pearl, where the percentage of socioeconomically<br />
disadvantaged families is particularly high. PEARSON<br />
offers, free of charge, a wide variety of services, including tutoring,<br />
mentoring, leadership, parenting, and marriage classes.<br />
Through the Vanessa Jenkins-Stewart Learning Institute, the<br />
Foundation provides after-school tutoring and mentoring for<br />
students in elementary through high school. According to PEARSON<br />
Foundation president and CEO, Jarvis Ward, the goal of this program<br />
is that “each participating student will improve his or her reading<br />
ability and comprehension, learn and improve on life-skills, grow in<br />
confidence as a more active academic and leisure reader, experience<br />
improved learning in and preparation for success in the STEM<br />
subjects, and gain wisdom to help navigate the many negative social<br />
traps that can prevent a student from succeeding in life.”<br />
86 • April 2018
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