On Tuesday, Oct. 11, United Way’s African American Leadership Greenville (AALG) hosted its inaugural An Evening With… event featuring Rev. Stacey Mills, Executive Director of the Greenville Racial Equity & Economic Mobility (REEM) Commission.

Under the leadership of Judge Merl Code, AALG was founded 23 years ago and has since contributed over $5 million to improving education and economic mobility in our community. Just a few years ago, the AALG Scholarship Fund was launched, which has now awarded more than $75,000 to African American high school seniors in Greenville County. This year, eight students received $5,000 toward their pursuit of higher education. You can hear from a few of these students in our video below:

In addition to celebrating the impact of AALG, the event featured a special conversation with REEM’s Stacey Mills, who shared more about the founding vision and future of REEM. Later this month, REEM is launching a town hall and speaker series on its focus areas and what’s being done to address barriers to equity and economic mobility in our community. This series will be free to the public and kicks off with an education town hall on Monday, Oct. 24. Register here.

View our gallery below for scenes from the event:

AALG has been uniting leaders and changing lives in our community for 23 years. Hear from members Ashton Lawrence and Monica Culbreath on why they choose to give back with United Way’s AALG: