The Stand
The Syracuse/Onondaga County National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s (NAACP) Academic, Cultural, Technological and Scientific Olympics (ACT-SO) program needs the community’s help to send four local ACT-SO first place winners to compete at the NAACP ACT-SO Competition in Las Vegas this July.
The following students will be representing the Syracuse/Onondaga County at this Competition:
• Jamaris Mitchell – in the Dance Category
• Chidera Joseph – in the Drawing Category
• Aconda Williams – in the Poetry Category
• Zifiso Nyoni – in the Short Story Category
The first place winners, the parents and the NAACP ACT-SO committee are working tirelessly to get these youth and their chaperones to the competition. We have received donations from a few companies and individual citizens which will cover the hotel rooms, however with the rising cost in airline rates; we are approximately $4,000 from reaching our goal.
We only have two weeks to reach this goal.
If everyone in the Syracuse/Onondaga community donates $1, we will meet this goal. Please help us not let these youth down.
We are scheduled to have a garage sale and an ongoing bottle drive.
The Garage Sale is scheduled for June 21.
For all information, you can contact Gwendolyn Fagan – Local ACT-SO Director at (315) 430-2586 or mail donations to – Syracuse NAACP ACT-SO – P.O. Box 397, Syracuse, NY 13205 or Drop them off to Gwendolyn Fagan during Tuesday through Saturday at Suit U Now – 2315 So. Salina Street, Syracuse, NY 13205.
The NAACP’s Afro-Academic, Cultural, Technological and Scientific Olympics is a yearlong achievement program designed to recruit, stimulate, and encourage high academic and cultural achievement among African-American high school students. ACT-SO includes 26 categories of competition in the sciences, humanities, business, and performing and visual arts. More than 260,000 young people have participated from the program since its inception.
— Letter to the Editor Submitted by Gwendolyn D. Fagan