Our Signature Service Project
Arizona’s Pearls is a comprehensive, community-rooted orphan care initiative created by the Epsilon Alpha Omicron Zeta Chapter of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Incorporated. Named in honor of founder, Arizona Cleaver Stemons—whose lifelong commitment to service, education, and social justice helped shape the sorority’s mission—this initiative is designed to uplift and support orphaned children across The Gambia and Senegal.
Unlike in the United States, where children separated from their parents often have access to extensive government-funded support systems—including foster care, adoption services, counseling, and educational subsidies—such infrastructure does not exist in much of West Africa. In The Gambia and Senegal, there are no tax-funded programs or safety nets to ensure the care of orphaned or vulnerable children. Support for these children largely falls on extended families, overwhelmed communities, or under-resourced private organizations.
Arizona’s Pearls steps into this gap with compassion and intentionality, providing flexible, locally adaptable programs that center literacy, wellness, creativity, and connection. The initiative serves as a living tribute to the legacy of Arizona Cleaver Stemons, while boldly advancing Zeta’s commitment to global service and equity.
Arizona Cleaver Stemons, born Arizona Leedonia Cleaver, was an American social worker. While she was a student at Howard University in 1920, she was one of the five founding members of the Zeta Phi Beta sorority, and its first president.
The five founders, known as our Five Pearls are, Arizona Cleaver Stemons, Pearl Anna Neal, Myrtle Tyler Faithful, Viola Tyler Goings and Fannie Pettie Watts.
“There is a Zeta in a girl regardless of race, creed, or color, who has high standards of principles, a good scholarly average, and an active interest in all things that she undertakes to accomplish.”
Arizona Cleaver Stemons
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Read2Rise
Nennah Bamburang
Bamburang
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To elevate and honor traditional values through Scholarship, Service, Sisterhood and Finer Womanhood.