Walmart Inc. is sponsoring a scholarship through the NAACP to help people coming out of the prison system obtain the education and skills needed to re-enter society.
The Empowering a Better Tomorrow Scholarship Powered by Walmart will award $5,000 to 20 recipients, for a total of $100,000, the company said in a news release Friday.
"This is the first time a public company and the NAACP have teamed up to offer a scholarship of this kind, with the award sponsored by Walmart," the company said.
Many formerly incarcerated people lack the education and skills to obtain steady, well-paying jobs, and the cost of learning a new trade or earning a college degree is often out of reach, Walmart said.
"Our aspiration is to reduce bias, incarceration and recidivism by using our scale, influence and access to stakeholders to drive long-lasting racial equity in the criminal justice system," the Bentonville-based retailer said.