Our Invitation

New ideas and combinations of ideas drive the students in the Jackson Grown Leader Fellowship. As they strengthen their abilities to think in unique ways about very old problems, Fellows invite the community to follow their lead and to do the same.

Our History

The Jackson Grown Leader Fellowship began emerging in 2018 from a series of articles in Our Jackson Home. These articles profiled the stories behind unique alumni of the Jackson-Madison County School System and individuals with deep roots in the community. These profiles ranged from individuals who had walked the tightropes over Tanzania, strolled the runways of Paris, mastered the music studios in Nashville, run the bases at Fenway Park in Boston and spoke in fora ranging from the United Nations to the podcast desks in New York. By all measures these individuals are normal folks who had found ways to do interesting things. An idea grew across this local and global Jackson community to launch a leadership program to provide select students an opportunity to develop their unique talents and find their passions to invest in the neighborhoods around them. Since the initial conversations in 2020 and the launch in August 2021, Jackson Grown has served a wide range of students from across the Jackson Madison County community.

Our Goals

  • Understanding Community

    For the selected high school juniors and seniors who take part, the program includes in-depth discussions each week with local and global leaders who represent many passionate, rebellious and humble individuals from Jackson leading in a variety of ways in a variety of places.

  • Launching Ideas

    Those insights are brought together at the end of the spring semester with a speech by each student at the Annual Challenge to the City. This is a public forum-style presentation in which Fellows identify a local challenge in Jackson-Madison County and imagine what solutions could look like.

  • Building Networks

    The program has begun building a broad network of Jackson community members and is based on the willingness of respected individuals across a wide range of areas to serve as professional mentors to each of the Jackson Grown Fellows depending on their academic or professional interests.

For the Jackson community within and outside the city limits, it centers on two core ideas: the need to invest forward and the opportunity to reinvest back.

Our Program

For the selected high school juniors and seniors who take part, the program includes in-depth discussions each week with local and global leaders who represent many passionate, rebellious and humble individuals from Jackson leading in a variety of ways in a variety of places. 

These are discussions, not lectures and follow a structured curriculum to identify challenges, build solutions and launch ideas. Leaders and students speak as equals and as members of the same community. They offer perspectives inaccessible to the other, both for the student and the established professional.

Those insights are brought together at the end of the spring semester with a speech by each student at the Annual Challenge to the City. This is a forum-style presentation in which Fellows identify a local challenge in Jackson-Madison County and imagine what solutions could look like.

Finally, the program has begun building a broad network of Jackson community members and is based on the willingness of respected individuals across a wide range of areas to serve as professional mentors to each of the Jackson Grown Fellows depending on their academic or professional interests.

Our Fellows

We seek to make tailored investments for long-term impact on individuals’ lives. We recognize that there are many kinds of “smart” and many kinds of “success”. Our objective is to look for the incredible, unique strengths in individuals that might be overlooked by traditional measures or tests. We look for high-potential, well-rounded future leaders with a broad range of skills, interests and aspirations. We recognize that the best among us are often hidden. The ideal student for the Jackson Grown Leader Fellowship will seek students who demonstrate qualities to contribute meaningfully in the community. Fellows have proven this incredible potential time and again both on stage and in the community as they move forward from the program into lives dedicated to continued growth and service.

POTENTIAL | PASSION | POSITIVITY | COOPERATION | CURIOSITY | COMMUNICATION | RESILIENCE | ADAPTABILITY

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