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Minority & Small Business Week
October 7, 2020
Afro-Academic Youth Program Comes Home
NAACP reignites
achievement
competition
The NAACP’s youth-based Af-
ro-Academic, Cultural, Technological
and Scientific Olympics (ACT-SO)
will be returning to its Portland birth-
place.
The Portland NAACP has rebooted
its local participation in the national
student achievement program, partner-
ing with Portland icon Renee Mitch-
ell’s nationally award-winning I Am
M.O.R.E program.
An educator, program manager,
and social-justice minded consultant,
Mitchell is well-known for her years as
a columnist for The Oregonian and was
nominated twice for the Pulitzer Prize.
She won the Spirit of Portland award
in 2019. Mitchell will lead the ACT-
SO program locally, having recently
Rev. E.D. Mondainé
Renee Mitchell
been appointed chair of the Portland
branch’s reconstituted ACT-SO Com-
mittee.
“The ACT-SO program’s first na-
tional competition was in Portland, and
it has been a mission of mine since tak-
ing the helm to raise the funds neces-
sary to reinstate the program locally,”
said Portland NAACP branch president
Rev. E.D. Mondainé.
In more than 200 local communities
throughout the U.S., ACT-SO adult
volunteers recruit students and men-
tors. Students work with mentors to de-
velop their projects and performances
for competition.
After competing in their respec-
tive local competitions, gold med-
alists are invited to compete on a
national level. For those headed to
national, mentorship and enrichment
programs continue, culminating in
The National Competition and Cer-
emonies, taking place in 2021 in
Charlotte, N.C.