Jackson Free Press

The City of Jackson's public transportation service, JATRAN, will offer free rides on all of the city's fixed bus routes on Thursday, June 20, from 5 a.m. to 8 p.m. as part of "Try Transit Day." The event coincides with National Dump the Pump Day (pump refers to a gas pump) and the Mississippi Public Transit Association's Mississippi Community Transportation Awareness Day, both of which encourage people to ride public transportation instead of driving their vehicles for a day.

JATRAN will also offer giveaways at Union Station in Jackson throughout the day beginning at 7 a.m. Transdev, the contractor for JATRAN's buses, will provide free hot dogs, chips and water at Union Station beginning at 11 a.m. At 4 p.m., JATRAN will host "Slow Roll with the City," a biking tour of downtown Jackson based on Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba's recent "Slow Roll With the Mayor!" event. Mukesh Kumar, director of the City's planning and development department, will lead the ride, which will begin and end at Union Station.

For more information, call Christine Welch, deputy director of transportation, at 601-960-1909 or find the event on Facebook.

"Rough Rugged and Raw" at The Murals

Kira Cummings, owner of graphic design, photography and videography company The Works LLC in Jackson, is partnering with record labels Reagan Baby Music and I Am Music Group to host "Rough Rugged and Raw" at The Murals (750 N. Jefferson St.) on Saturday, June 29.

Cummings is a visual artist who specializes in oil painting, wire sculptures and pyrography, which involves burning images onto wooden surfaces. She opened The Works LLC in May 2018. In addition to her graphic-design work, Cummings regularly organizes hip-hop and art shows around Jackson.

"Rough Rugged and Raw" will include performances from Jackson emcees Mr. Fluid, 7/27 and Preda-Kon, and Louisiana emcees Marcel P. Black and Flood. Admission is $10, and the doors open at 8 p.m.

"I think anyone who really appreciates good, authentic hip-hop and great showmanship will enjoy the lineup we're going to be bringing here," Cummings told the Jackson Free Press.

For more information, call 601-212-2652 or email Cummings at [email protected].

Mississippi Coding Academies Certifies 20 Full-Stack Coders

Mississippi Coding Academies recently announced that it certified 20 new entry-level software coders during an awards ceremony on Thursday, May 23, 2019, at the Greater Jackson Arts Council in downtown Jackson.

MCA is a free, 11-month program that trains recent high-school graduates and college students to become full-stack coders, or those who have enough functional knowledge and skill to take a computing project from start to finish.

The most recent MCA cohort began on June 1, 2018. As part of the program, the coders learned about visual coding programs such as HTML, CSS and JavaScript, programming languages such as SQL and website-creation programs such as React. The students also partnered together for hands-on projects like creating websites and databases, and organizing stored data for a car-rental company. The cohort members presented their projects and received feedback from more than 25 Mississippi organizations, including computer-programming company Smartzweb, software company School Status in Ridgeland and advertising firm Mad Genius in Jackson.

"It's a blessing working with these kids and seeing them show such commitment, even if some of them are here on top of working full-time jobs," Javier Peraza, an instructor at MCA, told the Jackson Free Press. "That's something that takes a lot of guts, and I couldn't be more proud of them."

Registration for the 2020 MCA cohort is currently open. MCA is also partnering with Comcast to launch a new program by the end of June called "Comcast Veterans Code," which will train veterans in software development on weekends and weekday evenings.

MCA has locations in Jackson (121 N. State St.) and on the Mississippi State University campus in Starkville (75 B. S. Hood Road, Starkville). For more information or to register for programs, visit mscoding.org.