By the time you finish talking to Jerome Thomas, you get the sense that the “scholarship recipient” tag isn’t even close to properly describing him. This man has a detailed plan. And, more than that, he’s already in the middle of executing it.
Zeal TN Inc., one of those rare marketing agencies that spends more time in real-world neighbourhoods and community spaces than in boardrooms, announced this week that Thomas is its 2025 scholarship winner. For the company, it’s a recognition of promise—an accolade they bestow on only the most committed and capable young people. For Thomas, it’s another step on a purposeful and goal-oriented long-term career journey that he has long since mapped out.
Thomas is in his final year at Montgomery, Alabama’s Faulkner University, earning a Bachelor of Science in Business Management. Graduation’s on the horizon, but he’s not slowing down. An MBA in marketing is next up on the checklist. After that? “I’ll be back at Zeal, as a director,” he says without hesitation.
Such a direct and quick response is indicative of two things; a person with a solid idea of where he wants to go, and a person with no shortage of confidence. In Thomas’ case, it’s not difficult to figure out where the latter came from. In a little over two months as an intern at Zeal TN, he soaked up more than just the standard marketing playbook. In fact, he credits the Nashville-based organization with substantially augmenting his formal education, teaching him, as he puts it, “the ‘Ins and Outs’ of running and operating a business, different marketing strategies, and how to implement them and why.” It’s the kind of stuff you can’t get out of a textbook, because it requires standing next to someone who’s already done it before.
For Thomas, that someone is Hector Planas. He calls Planas the most impactful person he’s met at Zeal. “A great teacher and a terrific individual,” is how he phrases it. It’s not the kind of praise you hear people throw around casually, and it’s clear that Thomas doesn’t. You can hear in his voice that these sentiments are earned.
If you don’t already know Zeal TN, here’s the rundown: they’re the people who bring nonprofit causes to the sidewalk, the shopping mall, the fairground—wherever actual people are. They talk to strangers. They pitch. They persuade. And they do it for the kinds of organizations that work with youth, shelter families, or keep kids in school and off drugs. Essentially, they are an agency dedicated to promoting charities and nonprofits so that those organizations can focus more on their core missions of helping people and making the world a better place.
Zeal TN’s business model is deliberately personal. They don’t use digital ads, cold calling, or broadsweeping media campaigns. No, Zeal’s foot soldiers, labeled as ‘ambassadors’ by the company, have real, honest-to-God conversations. Wherever Zeal operates, they employ locals—people who speak in the same dialect and vernacular of the territories they happen to work in. That’s how they’ve always operated, and by doing so, they’ve raised a ton of awareness and not insignificant amounts of money for causes like Safe Haven Family Shelter, Variety: the Children’s Charity, and L.E.A.D. (Law Enforcement Against Drugs), as well as providing much-needed relief for folks who have been displaced by tornados and other natural disasters.
What they offer their own people is just as hands-on. Staff aren’t left to figure things out on instinct alone or expected to absorb a pile of pamphlets in order to figure out their job. Rather, Zeal TN prescribes a steady regimen of training, coaching, and mentoring— the kind that turns a new recruit into a professional. The company believes that, sure, developing talent is good for business, but it’s also the engine that drives their whole mission forward, in turn benefitting the worthy causes they represent.
And that’s where the scholarship comes in. For Zeal, it’s about investing in someone who will put those skills back into the community. For Thomas, it’s about not wasting the chance. “Grab the opportunity, grab it with both hands and don’t let it go. Open your mind to learn and be willing to grow,” he says, as if delivering a well-worn mantra. “Remember this, nothing good comes easy.”
And he delivers this message like someone who’s already learned the hardest parts of those lessons, which might just be why the words seem to resonate. A scholarship is nice. A plan is better. And Jerome Thomas clearly has both.