On Wednesday, October 2, Southland Casino Racing, owned and operated by Delaware North presented The Jackson-Wonder Elementary School in West Memphis, AR with a check for $6,701. This year’s donation is double what it was last year to the Jackson-Wonder school. Southland Casino is Jackson-Wonder’s partner in the West Memphis, AR Partners in Education program.
Partners in Education is a nationwide organization that is designed to partner individual schools with local businesses in their community to assist the schools with issues they may have throughout the school year above and beyond their normal operations.
The West Memphis school district is a longtime participant in the PIE program and several businesses in West Memphis partner up with individual schools. Normally, schools located in lower income areas are targeted first in order to make sure they have a business partner to assist them, however, West Memphis has a business partner for each of the schools in the West Memphis school district.
“Education is economic development,” said Neki Catron, Southland Casino Community Engagement Manager, “Our economy depends on a skilled, educated workforce, and Partners In Education helps foster relationships between businesses and schools that last generations.”
Jackson-Wonder School Co-Principal, Leman Brown stated, “This Southland Gaming contribution will be used to expand learning activities in literacy, mathematics, and science by enabling the school to purchase additional manipulatives, supplies, literature, and audiovisuals that will aide in our school creating more inclusive environments for our scholars.”
Jackson-Wonder School Co-Principal, Annette Frazier said, “As this is the first year as the Jackson-Wonder Elementary School, we are focused on functioning as one team with one vision.
We are excited about our journey to aspire the Leaders of Tomorrow through enhanced focus on Literacy, Mathematics, and Science, and are thankful for the gains our scholars made during the 2018/2019 school year. We look forward to strengthening our relationships with parents, and the community as we work together to promote the health, wellbeing, and learning of all students.”