Robert Fulton Jackson and Annie Mildred Jackson Fund

Jared Pollard thinks often about his grandparents, Robert Fulton Jackson and Annie Mildred Jackson, about their humble beginnings growing up in small towns in rural South Carolina. With his establishment of a new Community Foundation fund in their honor, their legacy will live on. 

“Education was literally the gate of opportunity for them both,” Pollard said. “My grandmother was the first in her family to graduate from college. Her parents were sharecroppers. Without an education, there wasn’t a lot of opportunity for her in South Carolina. My grandfather grew up in very modest means and he was trained as a brick mason at Vorhees University in South Carolina, one of the first in his family to attend college. It allowed him to build his craft, to provide for his family, and to let my grandmother later pursue advanced degrees in education, to follow her dreams.” 

Robert Fulton Jackson used “his life savings to purchase a row house in D.C. in the 1940’s for $14,000 in cash,” Pollard said. It would become the family’s home for the next 75 years. Jared and his brother, as well as their cousins, grew up in Connecticut but they spent weeks each summer at their grandparents’ house. 

“I thought it was such a big house when I was young, but it was a narrow row house. But they had a library – a room full of books,” Pollard said. “My grandmother would encourage us to read all the time and then we would talk about the books.” “My grandmother was my biggest champion and cheerleader,” he said. She encouraged Jared and all of her grandchildren to delight in and dedicate themselves to learning.

After Jared’s father died, his grandmother helped out to ensure Jared and his brother could continue attending  private school. “And that was on a teacher’s retirement pension,” Pollard said. “She helped all of her grandchildren in all the ways she could.”

His grandmother cheered Pollard on as he studied economics and political science at Tufts. She attended his commencement from Columbia Business School where he received his MBA with honors, and she was proud of his career on Wall Street at Goldman Sachs. Today, Pollard, who lives with his wife and two sons in New Jersey, is a Senior Director of Global Equities at the Royal Bank of Canada. 

“They felt they were blessed to raise two daughters in their home, to have jobs they loved, and they each felt a deep obligation to help others,” Pollard said. 

His grandmother lived in that D.C. home until she passed away peacefully at 96 in 2022. “She was bedridden the last few weeks, but she still had her sense of humor and her strength,” Pollard said.

It was her wish that they sell the house and divide the proceeds between her daughters and four grandchildren. Pollard chose to use some of his inheritance to create the Robert Fulton Jackson and Annie Mildred Jackson Fund at The Community Foundation. His brother Ian also contributed to start the fund.  

Ten years earlier, Pollard created a fund at The Community Foundation to honor his late father, Glenn J. Pollard. “Working with The Community Foundation has been such a great experience,” he said. “The staff is fantastic, and the fund is well managed, and it has grown, which has allowed us to provide annual scholarship awards to student athletes at Wilbur Cross High School. I want the funds to continue on in perpetuity long after I am gone.”

The Robert Fulton Jackson and Annie Mildred Jackson Fund will support scholarships for students from the D.C. schools where his grandmother taught, will help support programs at Galbraith A.M.E. Zion Church and provide assistance to Washington D.C. homeless shelters.  

“This is a way to convert that initial $14,000 investment my grandfather made 75 years ago – using his life savings to create a home for his family – and turning that into generational impact. Although no members of our immediate family live in Washington D.C. today, we want our grandparents’ influence on their community to live on.”