The S.C. Johnson Fund has awarded a four-year grant of $240,000 ($60,000 per year) to the Opportunities Industrialization Center (OIC) of Racine County to provide local support for the Upward Bound Program. The U.S. Department of Education also supports the program with a four-year, $1 million federal grant.
Upward Bound supports high school students from low-income families and families in which neither parent holds a bachelor’s degree. The goal is to increase the rate at which these students complete high school and enroll in and graduate from institutions of post-secondary education. Sixty students are enrolled in the program, with 35 of them participating in a six-week residential summer academic enrichment program at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. Their summer will wrap up with one-week trip to Georgia to visit four college campuses and visit CNN studios and the Coca-Cola facilities in Atlanta.
The OIC program provides academic instruction in math, reading, writing and study skills all year 'round. It also provides financial and personal counseling, tutorial services, mentoring, assistance in preparing for college entrance exams and guidance in post-secondary educational opportunities.
Claudius Adebayo, executive director of OIC, said, “I have always believed in the extra-ordinary powers of good education to lessen or even eradicate the devastation of poverty. I experienced it in Africa but it still has to be constantly preached in this country. What S.C. Johnson Fund is doing is making the dream a reality for many low-income families in Racine to break that vicious cycle and get out of poverty. I can never thank them enough for that.”
For more information about Upward Bound, contact OIC of Racine County at (262) 636-3818.
At face value this sounds like a great program, but I guess the only way we will know for sure is to track these 60 students over the years and detemine how many actually end up with college degrees.
ReplyDeleteOr with J-wax past what are they covering up?
ReplyDeleteClaudius Adebayo of OIC had trouble posting, so asked me to put this comment up for him:
ReplyDeleteAnon. 4:00,You're very correct about that, and we are tracking their individual progress on a daily basis and reporting program performance to all the funding sources on quarterly basis.
And we are not resting on our oars either. In case you didn't know, OIC implemented a similar program called Quantum Opportunity Program, where we worked with 40 students most likely to drop out of school from ninth grade through 12th grade. After 4 years, 39 of our 40 students graduated and 39 of the 40 students in the control group (with identical characteristics) dropped out!!! It was a dramatic example of how far a little assistance can take our youth towards success in life. I promise you we shall do no less.
Feeling guilty about the tax-break??
ReplyDeleteClaudius Adebayo of OIC is a great man and a credit to the City. I am sorry that I posted in a way that on 2nd thought takes away from what he has done.
ReplyDeleteWhat tax break??????? I thought that was secret!
ReplyDeleteRacine is lucky to have a man as dedicated to solving its problems as Claudius Adebayo, and to have a company like SCJ to help finance his efforts. Both Claudius and SCJ have a long history of selfless service to Racine.
ReplyDeleteCladius does have a great rep in the City.
ReplyDeleteJ Wax has the rep IMHO of being the owner and in full control of there cute toy.
I really like that one of the stipulations is that neither parent has a degree. We are changing family history if these kids succeed. That is huge.
ReplyDeleteSCJ did NOT give $240,000. That money comes directly from the working families of Racine that are paying $400,000 more property tax each year because SCJ received a closed during tax exemption dealing with the child molesting former mayor.
ReplyDeleteWe tried to enroll our son, but were turned away because he didn't seem to fit the qualifications. I e-mailed and called the head of the program. No response. Then we went to our son's high school to talk to his counselor. We were told he he wouldn't qualify because he is not a minority. We mentioned that our son would like to attend college, but was struggling in certain classes. He is a well behaved child who would have benefited from this program. We were told to try Sylvan or Huntington for tutoring. Those are way out of our price range. We are not rich but are able to support our family of four children. Neither my husband or I finished our bachelor's degrees but worked our way up into professional jobs. We also pay property taxes to support unified. How come we can not benefit from a fantastic program like this?????
ReplyDeleteTo Anon. 11:05; I would like to check into this issue. The program has been extremely busy in the past 6 weeks, running an Academic Enrichment and Employment program out of the UW-Whitewater campus. They are on College Tours in Atlanta, Georgia area this week and the Program Director will be back in the office next week. Contrary to what the school counselor alleged, Upward Bound is not a minority student program. OIC is not an exclusively minority-serving organization either. Upward Bound and ALL of OIC's other programs are open to 60 eligible candidates without regards to race, national origin, gender, religion and all other kinds of discriminatory factors. I would appreciate more information so I can check into the issue.
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ReplyDeleteYou are not right.
I want to quote your post in my blog. It can?
ReplyDeleteAnd you et an account on Twitter?