Babcock Foundation awards grant to expand Southeast Scholars
Southeast Kentucky Community & Technical College and the Southeast Education Foundation have been awarded a three-year grant in the amount of $275,000 for the expansion and further development of the successful Southeast Scholars Program.
The program began in 1997 as a component of the SKCTC Rural Community College Initiative and is currently serving approximately 100 elementary and high school students who will be first-generation college students.
Since its inception, the Southeast Scholars Program has molded and ushered five classes into higher education and helped students to improve their attendance record in school while aiding them to become high achievers academically.
According to Paul Pratt, a dean at SKCTC who heads the program, students attend various workshops and seminars during the school year and participate in a summer camp. Participants in the program are identified in the sixth grade and officially enroll in the program in the seventh grade where they remain through their senior year in high school. Those who progress through the program will receive for free two years of education at SKCTC.
Additionally, students are paired with mentors who play an important role in helping expose the students to various vocational and career opportunities, he explained.
“In addition to these strategies, we work to incorporate an entrepreneurial focus on career development objectives. The Southeast Scholars staff works hard to adopt new and challenging curricula such as the successful Real Enterprise Program,” Pratt said.
“Partnerships are developed with local businesses in each of the counties (Harlan, Bell and Letcher), of which the program serves, and scholar students are required to be involved in an entrepreneurial training project that maps business patterns and develops plans for small businesses. Area business owners and their key personnel serve as mentors for the youth.”
Another aspect of the Southeast Scholars Program is to strengthen alliances with all school districts within the Southeast Kentucky Community & Technical College service area by working with staff from each school district in order to help increase retention and in-class performances of all scholar students.
Dean Pratt noted the Babcock Foundation has structured its grant as a challenge grant for the second and third year. SKCTC has made a commitment to raise a total of $125,000 ($50,000 in year two and $75,000 in year three), in order to match the awarded funds.
Fund raising efforts by the college’s Office of Advancement have been proposed with the receipt recently of two gifts totaling $15,000.
The Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation, according to Pratt, “assists people in the Southeastern portion of the United States in building caring communities which nurture people, spur enterprise, bridge differences and foster fairness. The mission of the foundation is to help people move out of poverty and achieve greater social and economic justice.”
Since 1997 the scholars program, operated by Southeast Kentucky Community & Technical College and through its foundation, has enjoyed many successes.
“There have been numerous positive changes within the lives of many bright students from the region who have gone on to be successful in college and in society,” said Pratt. “We are certainly excited and optimistic about the new funds from the Babcock Foundation which will help students identify career opportunities within our local communities. The Southeast Scholars Program is working to make lives richer and brighter!”
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