Chick-fil-A Pledges $500K To Morris Brown College’s Leadership Program

FILE – This July 19, 2012, file photo, shows a Chick-fil-A fast food restaurant in Atlanta. Chick-fil-A is gifting $500,000 to a leadership development program at Morris Brown College, an historically Black college in Atlanta, the school announced Monday, May 3, 2021. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart, File)

Chick-fil-A is set to gift $500,000 to a leadership development program at a historically Black college in Atlanta, the school announced Monday. 

The program at Morris Brown College will be aimed at preparing students for careers in hospitality and organizational leadership, the college said in a statement announcing the pledge from the restaurant chain.

The contribution marks one of the largest received by the college since beginning its reaccreditation process two years ago, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

Chick-Fil-A intends to work with the school to teach financial literacy, entrepreneurship, leadership and other workplace skills, said Rodney Bullard, Vice President of Corporate Social Responsibility for Chick-fil-A, Inc.

The partnership comes as construction is set to begin this fall on a 150-unit hotel on the Morris Brown campus near downtown Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium. The project is expected to offer two food and beverage outlets, an outdoor terrace and instructional space for the school’s hospitality students.

Officials said Morris Brown will soon become the only historically Black college and university in the country with both a national hotel chain and hospitality management training program on its campus. 

“I look forward to Morris Brown being a direct pipeline of diverse leaders within the career fields of hospitality and organizational leadership for organizations like Chick-fil-A,” college President Kevin James said in the statement. “My goal is for Morris Brown to become one of the top institutions in the country for Black and Brown people to learn how to own, operate, lead, and manage restaurants and hotels.”