The Wrap-Up! Aldis & Gayle at The White House, Sam Pollard Honored and More

Aldis Hodge was all smiles with CBS morning correspondent Gayle King at The White House for the 2024 Correspondents’ Dinner. Probably because his new Prime Video series, Cross, has already been picked up for season two, though the series has yet to premiere on the network.

Prolific filmmaker Sam Pollard was honored for his incredible body of work and for his decades of mentoring the next generation of storytellers at Black Public Media‘s PitchBLACK Awards, a culmination of the nation’s largest pitch competition for independent filmmakers and creative technologists focused on works about the Black experience. Sponsored by Netflix and PBS, $610,000 was awarded to visionaries at its celebration in New York City.

This week, entrepreneur Pinky Cole Hayes spoke during the commencement ceremony for Savannah State University’s 2024 graduating class. Cole Hayes added excitement to the day by bestowing the class a special gift that would help propel their future. In collaboration with Operation HOPE and One Million Black Businesses (1MBB), she donated $8.75 million dollars worth of in-kind services from Operation HOPE and a membership to 1MBB.

“I am passionate about lifting up the next generation of leaders and entrepreneurs of our world. I know firsthand what it means to have mentorship and how someone believing in your dream can make a difference. This graduating class has experienced so much adversity. Their college years began with a global pandemic and they have had to navigate their lives through unprecedented events. Through it all, they have thrived and are ready to enter the ‘real world’ with more experience and the confidence to face life’s new challenges. I believe in these graduates, and I hope that this gift will help them as they transition into this next phase of their lives,” says Pinky Cole Hayes.