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“No Access, No Dream” on Zoom Saturday

TRYON—This year’s Martin Luther King Jr. event will be held on Zoom at 5 p.m. this Saturday, Jan. 22. 

The event is sponsored by the Thermal Belt Friendship Council and is titled, “No Access, No Dream.” 

The featured speaker is Dr. Joseph Fox, owner of Fox Management Consulting Enterprises LLC. 

The Thermal Belt Friendship Council hosts an MLK event every year. The event is normally held at the Tryon Fine Arts Center, but because of COVID will be held online this year. 

The Thermal Belt Friendship Council is a nonprofit organization that formed in 1986 to promote stronger relationships and diversity among people in Polk County. The council does potluck dinners, Christmas caroling and a monthly group luncheon at area restaurants. 

The council also has a scholarship fund for area high school students. 

Dr. Fox is a lifelong educator, mentor and community advocate. Dr. Fox has advocated for students of a darker hue for more than 30 years as a community college instructor and as a former department chair of business administration at Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College. He founded the Minority Male Mentoring Program that later became the Minority Students Leadership Academy and now the Multicultural Student Leadership Academy at A-B Tech. 

After retiring from the community college system, Dr. Fox established the Hazel Fox Minority Student Entrepreneurship Scholarship, in memory of his mother, which several scholarships were awarded to students. 

Fox also established the Hazel Fox Minority Business Plan Competition, where $11,000 was awarded recently to several local start-ups and existing businesses owned by non-majority entrepreneurs. 

Dr. Fox is the outgoing vice president of the Martin Luther King Jr. Association of Asheville and Buncombe County, a Wilma Dykeman Board member and a Carolina Small Business Development Fund Board member. He also currently serves on the Food-Security Reparations Coalition and is on the advisory committee for the African American Heritage Trail Project. 

Dr. Fox is from Tryon and serves on the Eastside Citizens’ Advisory Committee as well as the vice president of the Roseland Community Center Board of Directors. 

Dr. Fox is also the chair of the Asheville Martin Luther King Jr. Peace March and Rally Committee and the chair of the Buncombe Community Remembrance Project in partnership with the Equal Justice Initiative to recognize, honor and celebrate 3 individuals “of record” that were lynched in Buncombe County. 

To join the Zoom event Saturday, people must register through Eventbrite and search Friendship Council MLK Commenoration. 

For more information about the event people can contact Donna Tatnall at 828-859-7099.