MVA and Bank of America join together for Citizen Schools

Citizen Schools partners with public middle schools in low-income communities to provide a longer learning day with great opportunities for students to discover and achieve their dreams.  Each Citizen Schools apprenticeship culminates in what the program calls a WOW! event—an opportunity for the students to showcase all that they have learned to their friends, family, and teachers.  This semester, MVA partnered with Bank of America to help teach the Citizen Schools BrandYOU Apprenticeship at Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School located in North Charlotte.  MVA’s Melissa Weir and Katie O’Hara and BofA’s Philip Armstrong, Alfred Reed, Kimberly Young-Tucker, and William Merritt joined together as the BrandYOU Apprenticeship teachers.  Together they helped teach a group of students on the power of effective branding and the ability and importance of branding oneself.

MVA hosted the MLK Citizen Schools students along with MVA attorneys John Evans, John Gilson, Larry Gwaltney, Ryan Smith, and Zach Smith and a number of Bank of America executives on December 3.  Each student presented their own unique Brand Board that they created over the last 8 weeks.  Through this experience, the students had the opportunity to practice public speaking skills, answer challenging questions, and connect with several experienced executives.