Musical artist and producer Pharrell Williams believes every child could be successful if they had the right tools. As he was growing up in the Seatack neighborhood of Virginia Beach, Williams faced difficult times with his family but they stayed strong and he was lucky enough to find his tool for the future, music. He attributes his success to that discovery and believes that if every community with underserved youth had a community center dedicated to augmenting the learning experience and providing exposure to different resources, arts, and technologies, children could find their own tool and create a successful future.
Thus in 2008, Williams founded From One Hand To AnOTHER (FOHTA), a non-profit organization to support the Pharrell Williams Resource Center (PWRC), whose learning programs are developed for underserved youth ages 7 to 20 in at-risk communities across the US. FOHTA aims to change the world one kid at a time by providing the tools and resources to help them reach their unique potential.
The first in a series of Pharrell Williams Learning Facilities, PWRC in Virginia Beach, Virginia currently offers educational STEAMM (science, technology, engineering, arts, mathematics, and motivation) tools to children in the city's schools, churches, and parks and recreation facilities. Looking to modernize the community center concept, PWRC provides project-based learning activities, life coaching, tutoring, and motivation lessons in a safe and technologically enhanced environment.
Today, a quarter of Americans who start high school do not graduate. Several countries including Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, Japan, South Korea, and the United Kingdom have a larger percent of college graduates than the US. A largely uneducated workforce will lead American corporations to look for employees overseas in the next 20 years. FOHTA is dedicated to reversing this trend by developing a prepared workforce and the nation's future leaders.
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