OCR Text |
Show i spotty and their future was bleak. But something happened to them, too, and today their attendance is good, their grades are good and they're probably headed for college. The "something" that happened to Betty, Tom and Bill is an organization called Keep a Child in School (KCS). Its members are concerned adults to whom school officials in the Charleston area refer dropouts or potential dropouts. As fast as possible, a volunteer KCS "sponsor" is assigned to the boy or girl A and, in most cases, a heartening friendship is formed. The sponsor gives time and affection to the youngster, broadens his horizon, encourages him and builds him up, makes him understand the reasons for staying in school. this Usually pulls him through to graduation and a job, sometimes even to r I I better fed. The engineer says that both Having found that clothes are so important, KCS has established a clothing Tom and Bill are college material and he'll see to it that they get to college. One KCS kid had a dramatic experience concerning college. He won a $4000 scholars!, t- or Boston University. Without his sponsor he wouldn't even life so much. There's the father ancj a mother and a son about my own age. I go to see them some weekends. We go to ball games and church and visit the Civic Center. It's like I have two families. I love them both but my sponsor family can do more for me. They sort of changed the way I look at things." And at Charleston High, center where the youngsters can draw from a stock of fine used clothing and some new goods donated by merchants. There also are cosmetics which do wonders to raise girls' morale. - pretty, brown-eyeTheresa talked about her sponsor: "Oh, she's so nice! We go out to dinner or over to her house and talk about things. She's a special friend and I really need her because I live in the county home and I haven't got anybody at all. I can't remember any real home. Where I live lots of the kids have sponsors and we sit around and compare them. I'm going to be a nurse and someday I'd like to help a girl as much as my sponsor helps me. ti Do parents resent an outsider becoming their child's sponsor? "No, they don't," one sponsor explains. "Usually they just silently acknowledge that they can't do much for their kids and they're glad that someone else wants to help. Some sponsors, in fact, are now on the seconder third child in the same family. And it's touching when the parents give little gifts to the sponsor canned goods from their garden or maybe a :. You can eat everything you see on this page .. and still lose upto5pounds in one week. 'twLYVjr k hh ip . A', 'r-- t rt st-4- ! av .v: and girls have been reports Mrs. Jerry Goldberg, board chairman. "Right now we have 155 being sponsored but the need is great at least 500 on a waiting list." Says Carl Holland, social services director of the Charleston Board of Education: "KCS is the most unselfish and highly motivated group I've ever seen. They give so much time and personal involvement. For us in the schools to be helped that greatly from outside well, I've never seen anything like J'f v , 'y'4y c Waiting list l y, 'A'J J0 college. "This is the fifth year of the program and so far 300 boys ' f 1 ' I ' r - ) .. , A fy ! -- Sv 4 1 spbn-sored- ," I I i i f homemade apron." v mi & V r ?., .- . v t girl really r wanted was com- panionship, encouragement, advice and love. Mrs. Julia Taylor, counselor at Charleston High School, puts it very simply: "The children ask so little. Most often, just someone to talk to." Frequently a husband and wife work together as KCS sponsors but Tom and Bill were aided by a widowed engineer who invited the boys to his home, taught them to play chess, and took them to art museums and the planetarium. He persuaded the idle father to accept public assistance so that now the home is at least heated and the family Even potatoes are on the Proslim diet. Even noodles are on the Proslim diet. Even sandwiches. Proslim 7 Day Reducing. Each day you eat 8 tasty Proslim wafers of concentrated protein, and good delicious food. And you'll lose ugly weight. Medically proven Proslim 7 Day Reducing. With Proslim you lose weight in just seven days. Ai.d that's dieting without much suffering. Available at all drug counters. y f have known about the scholarship competition and, if he had, wouldn't have had the $5 entry fee. Some of the deprivations are pathetic. A sponsor reports: "My boy flatly refused to go to gym class and wouldn't give a reason. It turned out that he didn't own any underwear and was ashamed to undress in the locker room to put on gym clothes." At George Washington High School a sponsored Harry, told his story to PARADE: "We live down in a hollow on a sort of farm. There's 11 of us and my pa is have to do most of the deceased. work. My grades used to be pretty bad and didn't see much sense in going on but now they're average and think I'll make it. My sponsor has changed my tenth-grade- r, , w they're found Sponsors through publicity, public appeals and friends acknowledge they have an edge in getting through to the youngsters because they're somein his life thing brand-nenot the dri.iking father, not the domineering mother, not the teacher. KCS operates with a minimum of red tape and a budget of less than $2000 a year. Sponsors don't expect to be thanked, says Mrs. Tinsley Galyean, the founder. "The great reward, any sponsor will tell you, comes when you go to the graduation and see your boy or girl get that diploma." And the boy or girl realizes a few years later jjst how important the sponsor was. PARADE spoke with a girl who was sponsored the first year of KCS and is now doing all right in the world. "You might say," she confided, "that my sponsor saved ' gt "Personal involvement" is I brand-ne- They're . it." the key to KCS. In tact, in the few cases of sponsor failure, the sponsor usually thought his role was merely to shower gifts on the deprived youngster when what the boy or ld d, ld I I I w 22-year-- my life." |