Houston Life category interest

​The Links Inc. is one of the nation’s oldest and largest volunteer service organizations of extraordinary women who are committed to enriching, sustaining and ensuring the culture and economic survival of African Americans and persons of African ancestry. In September of 2012, A group from The Pearland Area, a community on the far south side of the greater Houston area, called the Pearland Area Ladies In Service through The Links, Incorporated has embraced the underserved youth of Brazoria County, Texas. It is an international, not-for-profit corporation, established in 1946. The current membership consists of more than 16,000 professional women of color in 279 chapters located in 41 states, the District of Columbia and the Commonwealth of the Bahamas.

​Through their outreach to the youth of this Houston area community, they provide transformational and sustainable programs that serve to enrich, educate and empower these youth and also provide support that encourages them to pursue careers in the areas of Science, Technology, Engineering, The Arts and Mathematics. The outstanding programming of The Links, Incorporated has five facets which include Services to Youth, The Arts, National Trends and Services, International Trends and Services, and Health and Human Services. The programs are implemented through strategies such as public information and education, economic development, and public policy campaigns.

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For more than a year these women worked endlessly together to identify how they could best serve their community. Although there were many challenges along the way, in the Fall of 2013, six professional women from the Brazoria County area emerged from the existing group to revamp and refocus the group, so that their initial purpose could be accomplished.

Although African Americans were affluent, in the largest cities of the South Houston area metropolitan county known as Brazoria County, such as Pearland, Alvin and Angleton, there was a great disparity amongst the African American Youth. Academically African American youth fell short not only to their Anglo counterparts, but their Hispanic counterpart as well.

​After further research the six, were brutally shaken by the statistics in the area of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math).

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Not only were the youth challenged academically in the STEM disciplines, the number of African American students pursuing STEM post-secondary education settled in the dreadfully low percentile.

For this reason, the six; Adfanie Gray, Carlotta Brown, Judy Harrison, Lisa Anderson-Williams, Michi Bruns-Clay and Pamela Etienne-Branch formed PALS-Pearland Area Ladies in Service, an interest group of The Links Incorporated.​With the mentorship of The Links Incorporated, the mission would be to “Provide STEM programming to the underserved minority youth of Brazoria County." Within a month the organizers developed a membership of 34 professional women who brought a multitude of expertise, resources and down-right hard work.

Over several months the PALS membership aligned themselves with The Links Incorporated values, initiatives and systems. Together a sustainable and transformational program was developed to support the PALS mission. Additionally and most importantly ever-lasting friendships were created. Learn more about the Pearland Chapter of Links Inc. Here.