Photos from The S.T.A.R. Foundation 1st Annual Back to School Drive

The S.T.A.R. Foundation: Our Limits Will Soon Be Milestones

Growing up in rural South Carolina, where cotton fields and peach trees populated vast areas of land and outlined borders, it seemed that dreams were infinite, but sometime unimaginable. To have a dream and not knowing how to accomplish it, to touch it, or to share it, is like being a bird and not being able to fly. In addition to your mental paralysis, the media is force feeding untruths and false hopes as you try to imitate your favorite athlete or entertainer. You are hoping your one in a million shot is around the corner, but the only thing visible are those cotton and peach fields your parents and grandparents toiled in, so that one day your dreams and goals would be as vast as the landscape. In attaining these dreams, you must attach yourself to Something True And Real. You have to commit yourself to your success. This is accomplished through faith, education, critical, independent thinking, planning your work, and diligently working your plan. These are just a few of the principles The STAR Foundation stand on to empower their community to improve their lives.

The S.T.A.R Foundation was started by A. Mendez Curry, Thomas Glover, and Asa Pressley, three dreamers from the same rural area that is now the landscape of their successes. Their mission as a community based foundation is to improve the quality of life in their hometown community, Johnston, South Carolina, through social action, mentoring, and education. This will be accomplished by implementing a Family Literacy program, Neighborhood Revitalization Projects, an annual school supply giveaway, and food drive that will provide the less fortunate, senior citizens, and the homeless with meals during the Holiday season. Also The STAR Foundation works closely with the local schools to provide mentoring and career planning to students. Objectively, The STAR Foundation exist to be used as a catalyst to empower their community to take collective action and social responsibility, thus creating their future as an artist would create a masterpiece: with vision, determination, confidence, and passion. Their motto is: "Our limits will soon be milestones."