Toot, Teach & Roll celebrates 15 years creating creative minds across Jackson
By Joshua Martin
JA Engagement Editor
For 15 years, Toot, Teach & Roll has been bringing education beyond the traditional classroom and directly into the communities it serves.
What began as a mother’s desire to give her children meaningful, hands-on experiences has grown into a mobile education initiative reaching thousands of children, families, and educators throughout the Jackson metro area.
At the center of that journey is founder and owner Andrea Jones-Davis. Her personal connection to creativity helped shape the vision behind Toot, Teach & Roll.
Jones-Davis said creativity was part of her upbringing. Her mother, a seamstress, taught her through example what it meant to take an idea and turn it into something tangible.
When Jones-Davis became a mother herself, she continued that tradition through arts and crafts with her children. Over time, however, she began to recognize those activities were teaching her children much more than how to make something.
“They were using their imagination, solving problems, making choices, and discovering their own interests and abilities,” Jones-Davis said.
That realization eventually led to a larger question. How could she provide those same opportunities to children who might not otherwise have access to them?
The answer became Toot, Teach & Roll.
Jones-Davis understood creating a program was only part of the solution. If access was a barrier, she believed the program had to go where the children were.
Fifteen years later, that philosophy remains at the heart of the organization.
Toot, Teach & Roll has expanded beyond its original arts and crafts foundation to include technology, digital learning, career exploration, and other creative experiences. The organization now operates two mobile units and two Creative Mind Studios in Jackson and Ridgeland.
Yet Jones-Davis said the mission remains rooted in the same belief that inspired the organization from the beginning.
“I needed to find a way to take those experiences directly to communities,” she said.
This approach has enabled Toot, Teach & Roll to operate in schools, churches, community centers, shopping centers, and neighborhoods throughout the Jackson metro area. For Jones-Davis, the mobility is more than a convenience. It is a strategy for addressing one of the most persistent challenges in education – access.
“I’ve learned that sometimes the barrier isn’t interest, it’s access,” she said.
Her experience has also reinforced the importance of giving young people different ways to learn.
Some students might struggle to connect with a lesson presented through traditional methods but become engaged when they can build, create, touch, or experiment.
“Children will often show you how they learn if you give them enough opportunities to do it,” Jones-Davis said.
That philosophy has become increasingly important as young people prepare for a future shaped by technology, entrepreneurship and rapidly changing careers.
Jones-Davis believes Mississippi must continue expanding the definition of what it means to prepare students for adulthood. Graduating from high school remains important, she said, but students also need a plan for what comes next.
“We need to rethink what preparation means,” she said, emphasizing the importance of creativity, technology, communication, collaboration, adaptability, and professionalism.
Her philosophy is reflected in Toot, Teach & Roll’s Next Chapter initiative, which helps young people develop individualized plans for life after high school, including college, careers, and entrepreneurship.
For Jones-Davis, the ultimate measure of Toot, Teach & Roll’s success is not the number of programs offered or the number of children who have stepped inside a mobile unit.
It is what those experiences inspire.
Some of the children first experiencing Toot, Teach & Roll years ago are now adults, and Jones-Davis said hearing their stories has become one of the most rewarding parts of the organization’s journey.
“When I think about legacy, I don’t want it to simply be the mobile units, the buildings, or the number of programs we’ve delivered,” she said. “I want it to be the people who discovered something within themselves because we gave them an opportunity to create.”
Fifteen years after its beginning, Toot, Teach & Roll continues to carry that message throughout the community. Education does not have to be confined to four walls and creativity is not simply an extra.
Sometimes, it is the doorway helping a young person discover what they are capable of becoming.
For Jones-Davis, that is the meaning behind the organization’s longtime motto, “Creating Creative Minds, One Doodle at a Time.”
“That ‘doodle’ was never just about art,” she said. “It’s an idea. It’s curiosity. It’s confidence. It’s someone realizing, ‘I can.’”
For more information, visit www.tootandroll.com.
