Page 31 - Florida Sentinel 10-26-20

Entertainment
Virginia High School Students Found First Black Student Union In School’s 100-Year History
Members of the newly formed Black Student Union at Handley High School stand in front of the school’s entrance. From left are Brittnay Turner, Ashlea McConnell, Sanae Stokes, Kiyah Sloane, Zadriana Johnson, Eunice Mejiadeu and Brittiana Rush.
Meet Caleb Anderson, The 12-Year-Old College Sophomore Studying Aerospace Engineering
Caleb Anderson is not your average 12-year-old.
Despite his young age, An- derson is already a sophomore studying aerospace engineering at Chattahoochee Technical College in Georgia.
According to 11Alive, he began to show his brilliance from the time he was in diapers, learning sign language to effec- tively communicate before he could even speak. He leveled up even further by learning to read the United States Constitution at the age of two.
“By nine months old, he was able to sign over 250 words, and by 11 months old, he was speak- ing and reading,” shared An- derson’s family.
At the age of three, Ander- son could already speak Span- ish, Mandarin, and French on top of his native language Eng- lish. He also qualified for MENSA — the largest and old- est high IQ society in the world. According to Face to Face Africa, this society is only open to people who score at the 98th percentile or higher on a super- vised, standardized, or other approved intelligence test.
“As we started to interact with other parents, and had other children, then we started to realize how exceptional this experience was because we had no other frame of reference,” said Anderson’s father, Kobi.
The news outlet shares that just two years after qualifying for MENSA, Anderson’s ad- mittance at the age of five, made him the youngest African Amer- ican boy to become a member of the society during that period.
Anderson’s mother says their decision to enroll him in college stemmed from not only his outstanding performances from lower school through high school, but his desire to push himself to learn more.
Startup Malomo Raises $2.8M Seed Round, Largest By A Black Founder In Indiana To Date
YAW ANING
In 2019, John Handley High School’s dropout rate was ap- proximately 7.1 percent, with chronic absenteeism of 24 per- cent — most of which Black stu- dents accounted for, according to the Virginia Department of Education, Because of Them We Can reports.
Those numbers could repre- sent how much Black students at the school feel excluded on a daily basis.
After struggling to see them- selves properly represented in the school’s population, one student set out to change that by creating an organization to encourage more inclusion.
Eunice Mejiadeu — a 17- year-old senior — shared that as a young Black woman, she never felt like she truly be-
longed at her school.
“When we look at Handley,
there’s not really this, I guess a safe place to come together. There’s a lot of self-isolation,” she said to Winchester News. “We just got kind of tired of just not feeling like we mattered, and I don’t think that was the intention Handley wanted to bring, and I feel like it just grad- ually happened over time.”
Those feelings of isolation prompted her and her friends to create the school’s first Black Student Union since the learn- ing institution was first founded.
“I just thought why not make a space where we can both pro- mote education and also pro- mote unity at Handley,” she said.
Malomo — a Black-founded information technology startup company that special- izes in e-commerce — an- nounced that it raised a $2.8 million seed round today to expand its services and provide a new marketing channel for the Shopify retailers, TechCrunch reports.
Financing for the round was led by San Francisco-based firm, Base10 Partners, as well as New York’s Harlem Capital. According to Harlem Capital, the announcement comes as “the largest Seed round by a Black founder in Indiana to date.”
Founder and CEO Yaw Aning shared that this fund- ing round will help the startup resolve issues retail clients ex- perience when working with shipping companies and offer a better customer experience.
He added: “Today, I’m ex- cited to announce we closed a $2.7M seed round to fix those problems and enable the fu- ture of post-purchase.”
In addition to its lead in- vestors, Harlem Capital and Base 10 Partners, Malomo also received funding from Irish Angels, Triple Map Ventures, Hyde Park Venture Partners, and High Alpha Capital.
Master P Enters The Billion-
Dollar Cereal Industry With Uncle P’s Hoody Hoos Cereal
Master P is ready to take over the business of cereal!
The serial-entrepreneur an- nounced that Uncle P’s Hoody Hoos Cereal will be available in stores this fall and will come in flavors which include Cin- namon Apple, Honey Drip, and Tropical Fruit & Marsh- mallow.
“You got milk, we’ve got ce- real,” Master P told rolling out. “We’re changing the game. The more we make, the more we give.”
According to a report from reportlinker.com, the breakfast cereal industry is expected to grow by $12.9 billion this year
(2020).
Not only is Master P using
his known entrepreneurial skills to make way for himself in the cereal industry, but the NOLA native will also use some of the profits to give back to the community.
“Hoody Hoos Cereal is not only a delicious breakfast or snack but is making a differ- ence,” said Master P. “A per- centage of every cereal box sold goes to providing inner-city kids in the community with ed- ucation, resources, and activi- ties to help build their future.”
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