As a seventh grader, Jaimee Maddox signed up for the Grant County 21st Century Scholars Program, but she only discovered what that meant her sophomore year at Marion High School.
Maddox said a mentor from Project Leadership opened her eyes to the possibility of free tuition at any public in-state college. The Ball State sophomore credited the nonprofit agency for steering her in the right direction.
A framed picture of Maddox and dozens of other students who participated in Project Leadership before graduating high school hang inside on the walls of the West 25th Street structure. Inside each of the framed pictures is a profile card of the student that states their high school, the name of their mentor, plans after high school and their red rubber ball - a symbol for what inspires an individual.
When Maddox reflected on how she benefited from Project Leadership, she first and foremost mentioned one-on-one mentoring. Hanover junior Angelo Yeomans, a 2012 Mississinewa High School graduate, shared similar sentiments in an email he sent Project Leadership Executive Director Tammy Pearson.
"The work that the entire PL staff puts into students is honestly the most selfless and honorable work that can be done and the mentors may not even realize what kind of impact they are having," Yeomans wrote.
Project Leadership launched its mentoring program for Scholars in 2007, the same year the agency emphasized encouraging eligible students to sign up for 21st Century.
Its effort paid off dramatically within three years of that initiative. The percentage of eligible seventh and eighth grade students in Grant County that enrolled in Scholars skyrocketed from 16 to 80. The percentages raised into the 90s from 2010 through 2013 before dropping to 74 percent last year. Pearson said the staff used to spend significant manpower calling eligible Scholars up to nine times to convince them to sign up. The staff lowered its call max to three per eligible Scholar and devoted the extra time and energy to the students who enrolled promptly.
The Department of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) along with the MENTOR: The National Mentoring Partnership took note of that extraordinary progress and recently awarded 21st Century with a national grant. Only 17 mentoring organizations that serve Indiana received the grant and the closest fellow winner to Marion is an hour drive away in Auburn.
The Indiana Mentoring Program is providing each of the grant winners with consultants to align their services with national mentoring standards. The consultants will spend 25 hours with each mentoring organization.
Pearson is counting on those 25 hours of consultation to improve the agency in two key areas. The first goal is to bring to life new curriculum for the students and shape programming. The other is to assist in refining procedures and policies, including how to select students.
A limited number of community volunteers prevent Project Leadership from reaching out to every eligible student.
"We don't cut the number off at 100, but it seems to be our capacity," Pearson said. "Students every year are on a waiting list."
Pearson said two-thirds of the students at Marion and 2,500 overall in the county qualify as Scholars. The county ranks No. 1 in the state in the percentage of students eligible for the program. That falls in line with a state survey released last month that ranked the county No. 1 in child poverty.
"It's not an issue that just crept up on us in one year," Pearson said. "Education may be the No. 1 solution to counter that statistic."
The Project Leadership staff is laying the foundation for children from low-income families to someday prosper, but Pearson said there is room for significant improvement. She cited alarming percentages for statewide Scholars at the collegiate level.
Virtually every statistic favors Scholars over low-income students, but when taking into account all-Indiana students, Scholars fall short in every comparison other than college access. Only 15 percent of Scholars statewide graduate with an associate degree in two years or bachelor's in four and just 33 percent complete their associate's in three years or their bachelor's in six.
"What we envision certainly isn't one out of 10 graduating in four years or three out of 10 completing college at all," Pearson said. "There's not one among us who want to be part of the group of seven that didn't make it."