NOEL AND VALERIE GRIER FOUNDATION non profit organization, online tutoring

After the death of my parents, Noel and Valerie Grier, I decided to establish the Noel and Valerie Grier Foundation to honor their memories and carry on their legacies. Neither of my parents were educators or educated by today’s standards. However, both were passionate about education and knew that it was the only way their three children could escape the poverty of rural Jamaica where the family lived before migrating to the United States. 

They saw education as uplifting, enlightening and liberating. 

This foundation will continue their vision of pursuing excellence through education. Our efforts and resources will be focused on supporting primary and secondary school students in Uganda and Jamaica who are denied access to quality education because their parents lack the resources to pay school fees and buy school supplies. 

While the Noel and Valerie Grier Foundation is a 501(c)(3) tax exempt organization that was formed in the United States, it’s center of operations is in Uganda. While charitable giving is a source of revenues for the organization, the majority of it funding is from its fee for service in the online tutoring program.  The tutoring service was conceived after fundraising failed to provide the necessary funds to achieve the foundation’s goals. 

The foundation recruits and trains Ugandan teachers and university students (living in Uganda) to harness technology and tutor students in the United States. This partnership between Ugandan tutors and their American students produces much of the funding needed to achieve the foundation’s objectives. 

An unintended consequence of this relationship is that it changes the narrative about Africans as they are now seen as providing the intellectual and human capital for the betterment of their American pupils. 

My parents would have been proud of this endeavor.