Project ACE need support to reward foster students
With the goal of encouraging outstanding foster youth students to keep excelling in school, the Imperial Valley Regional Occupational Program, Project ACE is currently seeking donations to provide rewards for the nominated students.
This year, Project ACE (Accessing Careers through Education) will host its first Rising Stars Awards later this month. The event is designed to recognize the foster youth who are doing well in school and hoping to distribute a number of prizes and incentives to honor those students that are doing well.
Traditionally foster youth have more of a hardship than the average student due to a multitude of factors such as emotional issues, moving from school-to-school and attendance. Only about half of students coming from a foster home earn a high school diploma.
“We want to recognize and encourage them to do well in school, enroll in extracurricular activities and continue to do well every year,” said Program Manager Luis Torres.
The types of items and donations Project ACE is seeking to collect in the next week include gift cards, bluetooth speakers, bicycles and affordable tablets. Project ACE is open to other suggestions and will also take cash or check donations. The deadline set for the collection of the donations is May 17.
Torres said, at this point they have received nominations for more than 40 students to be recognized by different schools, social workers and agencies — they are expecting to acknowledge close to 60 youth. The Rising Stars Awards event is scheduled for May 23.
“Hopefully the community can get behind this cause. We hope to make it a good annual event that will help us encourage the students to do better in school,” Torres said.
During the event the foster youth in attendance will also have an opportunity to be exposed to a variety of programs that can help them in their own development such as the College Prep Program, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and IVROP programs.
Torres said that one of the biggest reasons that so many foster youth fall through the cracks of the education system is due to falling behind early. The students then become frustrated in school and struggle due to not having the proper educational foundation on certain subjects.
“The key for many of these students is to start early and link them to the right programs and services and get them into the routine of doing well in school,” Torres said.
Members of the public interested in making a donation to Project ACE can drop donations at the Imperial County Social Services building on 2995 S. Fourth Street, Suite 102 in El Centro. Arrangements to pick-up donations can be made by calling 760337-3096.