January 26, 2023 – Representatives from the Youth Life Skills Institute visited fourth graders at Ashley Academy this morning to deliver a donation of $3,000 for their upcoming field trip to Raleigh.
YLSI is a youth-centered initiative sponsored by the Alpha Phi Lambda Chapter of the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity. The initiative partners with other community organizations in Winston-Salem to fund and promote programs that enrich local young people. The goal is to make sure that the next generation has everything that they need to be engaged and responsible citizens.
“Our mission is to implement efficient and effective programs that enrich, empower, and enlighten youth with life skills to help them be successful in their life pursuits and to be better citizens and responsible adults in the communities in which they live,” reads the website for the Winston-Salem Alphas.
The field trip to Raleigh is one of many educational initiatives that YLSI supports. Students will tour historical and governmental facilities that will guide their understanding of both North Carolina’s complex past and the civic institutions that shape its future. Staff at the school are happy to have the support of their neighborhood as they seek to get their young people off to a strong start in taking part in their society.
“You have been recognized as a school that will work to get better until we get to our best,” Principal Joanell Gatling told her students. “When you do good, you get good.”
Alpha Phi Alpha was established all the way back in 1906 at Cornell University as the first intercollegiate Greek-letter fraternity for African-American men. Its members still hail it as the best such organization for both its continued advocacy of academic excellence among its members and its longstanding commitment to combatting inequality in educational, economic, and social spheres. The fraternity’s donation will go a long way towards enriching today’s students, and hopefully, it will provide those students with many more opportunities to pay it forward.
“What we’re here for is to help,” said Jesse Hymes of Alpha Phi Alpha. “We want to help you do whatever you want to do that will be considered progress. We want to do good for you so that when you grow up, you can help someone too.”
