Marlon Foster is Stabilizing Families in South Memphis

There’s a two-mile corridor along Walker Avenue in South Memphis that Marlon Foster calls The Knowledge Quest Kid Zone. It’s a multi-site neighborhood campus dedicated to holistically and measurably improving the lives of South Memphis kids and the parents and adults around them. In a zip-code where the statistics reveal a history of severe disinvestment, Marlon Foster’s Knowledge Quest is helping families rebuild stability household by household. 

Through our Memphis episodes we are asking “What does it take to create a city with long-term family stability?”  At Marlon Foster’s Knowledge Quest campus, the answers are already in the neighborhood.

In this episode, co-hosts Tracey Pearson and Jamie Bennett talk to Marlon about:

• How stabilizing the life of a child requires stabilizing the life of the family around that child. 

• The “two gen”, asset-based, and “H20” models through which Knowledge Quest frames their work with children, parents, and community. 

• The research behind Adverse Childhood Experiences and the importance of preventing long-term negative outcomes.

• Marlon’s 27-year journey building Knowledge Quest – from a single “office” in the backroom of his grandmother’s house to a multi-building campus offering after-school programs, early childhood education, family stability centers, a teen tech center and a 3 acre USDA-certified organic urban farm.

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Next episode (out July 22nd) we head over to Archie Willis and Alex Willis-Boddie’s offices at ComCap Partners – a Memphis-based real estate development firm that specializes in developing real estate in historically Black neighborhoods that have suffered from disinvestment and redlining, and require creative financing solutions beyond traditional market forces.

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Learn more about Knowledge Quest at https://knowledgequest.org/

Preview all of Season 2 at https://pathbreakers.kresge.org

Co-Hosts: Tracey Pearson and Jamie Bennett

Producer: Juliet Hinely

Managing Editor: Krista Jahnke

Production support: Jennifer Kulczycki and Tracey Pearson

Graphics: Alejandro Herrera

Logo animation: Collin Leix

Special thanks on this episode to Kresge’s American Cities Program, especially Chantel Rush Tebbe and Anand Sharma, and to the Human Services Program, especially Dr. Raquel Hatter. 

Thanks for listening! And please stay tuned for more from Memphis.