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At Parkway Elementary School in Virginia Beach, students are learning about improving their own communities and mapping their own destiny. Through a partnership with From One Hand to Another and the Urban League of South Hampton Roads, students are growing their own brain food, envisioning their futures through dream mapping, and learning how they can take action to improve their communities. This after-school program lets kids learn by “getting their hands dirty,” giving them real-life experiences and linking these experiences to making their dreams become realities.

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In honor of Pharrell’s birthday, we declare April as FOHTA month. Please join us in supporting FOHTA by making a contribution.

Dear Friends,

Great news!!!

Entercom, who owns Z104, 95.7, 101.3, and 94.9 has agreed to celebrate Pharrell’s birthday with us by launching a campaign to gain support for From One Hand To Another (FOHTA). As you know several schools have invited us in this summer to run our Summer of Innovation (SOI) camps. Five of those camps require much more money then we utilized last year. In order for us to expand our services to educate 500 plus more students we need additional support.

The campaign begins with FOHTA’s appearance on March 31, 2013, where FOHTA will be featured in a community update segment on radio stations Z104, 95.7, 101.3 and 94.9 from 6 AM to 7:30 AM.

On April 2, 2013 Shaggy will kick off the campaign with commercials and shout outs to encourage Pharrell’s fans to join him in celebrating Pharrell’s Birthday by supporting his foundation. The campaign will continue until April 8, 2013. We are encouraging everyone to support what he loves…giving back to the community through educating our youth.

April 4th through April 9th Clear Channel, who owns 103 JAMZ and iHeart Radio will join the campaign with promos, commercials and live feeds.

Donations can be made at fohta.org. No donation is too small.

Through summer camps and after school programs, FOHTA is striving to augment the education of kids through: STEAMM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics and Motivation). Our Community Report and other information can be found at fohta.org

Please pass this email on to others… Pharrell put “757″ and Virginia on the map in many areas… let’s show Pharrell we appreciate his vision to educate our youth.

If you have any questions please contact me at fohta@cox.net.

Sincerely,

Carolyn Williams, Ed.D. , Board Chair
Louisa Strayhorn, Executive

Marco Martin ’12

Undergraduate Measures Federal Economic Impact on Hampton Roads

It would have been a daunting job even for a professional economist – to measure the direct economic impact in Hampton Roads of the entire federal sector. That means the impact not only of the U.S. Navy and other military branches, of NASA and the Department of Homeland Security, but also of the lesser referenced agencies such as the Department of Labor and the Department of Agriculture.

Marco Martin got this assignment when he signed on as an unpaid intern in June 2011 with the Hampton Roads Military and Federal Facilities Alliance. He was still working on the project when he graduated with a BS/BA in finance in May, and he stuck with it until his report, “Direct Economic Impact of Federal Spending within Hampton Roads, FY 2009-2010,” was finished in July. The document was being circulated in the fall to opinion leaders and economic planners throughout the region.

“My thanks and compliments to Marco,” wrote Craig Quigley, the retired rear admiral who is executive director of the alliance, in a cover note distributed with the report. “To the best of my knowledge, it is the first time that an attempt was made to measure the total direct economic impact of the entire federal sector on Hampton Roads.”

Martin was able to document almost $21 billion in payroll payments to 159,070 federal employees in Hampton Roads and almost $10 billion in procurement spending in the region by federal agencies. That amounts to around 47 percent of the region’s gross product.

Most of the documentation he needed was available through formal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. But make that “theoretically” available in some cases, he says. “This was by far the most complex and time-consuming part of the project. For a few organizations, the FOIA process was smooth. For most, it was a tough journey. My boss for the internship, retired Rear Adm. Quigley, who is a great guy, by the way, received one response to an FOIA request two weeks ago (after the report came out). I had submitted the request a year before that.”

Martin said he is also grateful for the help he received from Vinod Agarwal, the ODU professor of economics who advised him during the compilation of the data, and from Greg Grootendorst, an economist with the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission.

Hard work and ingenuity have been Martin’s secret to success for years.As a pre-teen growing up in economically depressed Martinsville, Va., he was victimized by layoffs that drained his family’s finances. “I believe seeing that made me a lot of who I am and planted the seeds for my passion in finance and economics,” he says. Looking for better job prospects, the family moved to Norfolk, where Martin attended Booker T. Washington High School.

In the 11th grade he was accepted into a dual enrollment program administered by Norfolk Public Schools and Tidewater Community College. He credits the program’s leader, Susan Sigler, with expanding his interest in finance and economics.

It was Sigler who mentioned to a reporter for The Virginian-Pilot that she had gotten astute stock market advice from Martin, and a resulting article about him caught the eye of Nancy Bagranoff, then the dean of the ODU College of Business and Public Administration. “She wrote me a personal note, inviting me to apply. Her note confirmed that (enrolling at ODU) was the right thing for me to do.”

Now that he has graduated – it took him only three years to get his degree – is he still giving out free financial advice? It reveals a lot, he says, that he has chosen to work for a local insurance company.“Risk management, you know.That’s where we are.”

NASA’s Associate Administrator of Education and former Astronaut Leland Melvin recalls when he applied to the astronaut program. He had family members telling him he couldn’t be an astronaut, but his dreams surpassed any obstacles that stood in his way, and Melvin made it happen.

“Don’t let anyone keep you away from your dreams, not even your own family,” Melvin said. “And definitely don’t let yourselves keep you away from your dreams.”

Melvin told this story to more than 900 middle school students and parents at the From One Hand To Another (FOHTA) Summer of Innovation (SOI) graduation and awards ceremony.

Read the full article here →

NASA’s Associate Administrator of Education and former Astronaut Leland Melvin and three-time Grammy Award-winning producer Pharrell Williams congratulated and inspired students who participated in NASA’s Summer of Innovation. Credit: NASA/Sean Smith