Foundation For The Mid South Inc

Education opportunities:foundation for the mid south (fms) advanced education equity initiatives across the region by: - youth development: delivered keynote presentations and leadership sessions at the gear up leadership academy (delta state university, june 2024), promoting youth leadership, academic persistence, and workforce readiness. - fms sponsored the mississippi consortium of higher education in prisons (mci-iep) convening. The mchep convening is an annual event that focuses on best practices, policy updates, pell implementation information designed to assist colleges, universities, and partners in prison education work to provide meaningful instrnction leading to degree completion. - fms sponsored teachella august 31, 2024. Teachella is an educator expo designed for all educators to come together and initiate the movement that is needed to increase teacher retention and recruitment to help combat mississippi's critical teacher shortage. - fms education provided four summer camps during june and july, with 175 students representing all nine school districts. To prepare for the summer camps, the gear up programs teams hosted two orientation sessions. The first session was for district liaisons/chaperones, with 100% district participation. The second session was for parents, with 100% district participation. - the gear-up team secured ten pminership meetings (100%) with school leaders from july 30, 2024, through august 9, 2024, to improve communication and learning oppo1iunities with one of our paiiners, get2college. These efforts and plans were implemented to ensure gear-up scholars can maximize all the free educational opp01iunities that gear-up mississippi delta affords them as high school students.- through the mississippi delta gear up pminership, fms accomplished the following:--1,843 students served--14,482 total service hours--96% schools servedimpact: the education work directly contributes to fms's strategic goal of raising high school graduation rates by 10% across the tri-state region by 2030.

Healthy opportunities:the foundation advanced both mental health and physical health equity in 2024: - mental health leadership: fms intern john r. Walker was appointed to the mississippi k-12 and postsecondary mental health task force, established through senate bill 2727. He is the only youth representative statewide, a notable example of fms's leadership cultivation model. - partnership with mississippi department of health (mdh):--integrated fms's reentry resource guide (rrg) into the mdh statewide website.--expanded chw (community health worker) training and ce1tification efforts for community-based workforce expansion.- philanthropic alignment:--collaborated with the robert wood johnson foundation (rwjf) on health equity concept notes.--secured $25,000 from julie h walker legacy foundation for student emergency medical training.impact: these partnerships positioned fms as a key intermediary for public health capacity-building in underserved communities, especially through workforce-linked health initiatives.

Community engagement and events:under the trht framework, fms supported six community partners-millsaps college, jackson state university, tougaloo college, mission mississippi, neshoba youth coalition, and the alluvial collective-to design and lead local racial healing programs: - reach: over 800 participants statewide, spanning community dialogues, storytelling circles, and symposia. - highlights:--millsaps college hosted juneteenth st01ytelling forums exploring economic equity.--mission mississippi led "one community" dialogues across biloxi, hattiesburg, and picayune.--tougaloo college convened "rooted in resilience" fireside chats on black agricultural equity.--the alluvial collective addressed jackson's water crisis through environmental justice roundtables. - trht media project:--partnered with jacksonian media to document racial healing events; four major recordings were completed and archived (june-july 2024). - evaluation: evaluator rodney washington received national recognition as a robert wood johnson foundation culture of health leader, elevating the profile of the mississippi trht initiative.