It’s been more than a year now since Wabash County made a promise to its youth and now, others get to do the same.
The Wabash County Promise began in 2013 as a way to ensure that its youth are prepared for post-secondary attainment and it only took a year for locals to realize that the message and process had to be shared regionally.
The Promise is a collaboration of the county’s YMCA, schools, businesses, faith organizations and individuals to help set up college savings plans for K-12 Wabash County students, along with emotionally supporting them and their families to prepare for education after high school.
Financially, for every $25 that a student puts into their account, the community members who are with the Promise contribute a matching $75 donation.
Supportively, students have the ability to be matched up with “Champions,” who can be anything from a relative to a community member, neighbor or business owner, who emotionally supports a child through their academic career.
At the county’s 2013 and 2014 public school registrations, hundreds of K-12 students were signed up for the Promise by their parents and guardians.
In July 2013, only 6 percent of the County’s K-3 students had a college savings account. After 2013 school registrations, that figure increased to 65 percent. For all of the then-new accounts that were created at that time for K-3 students, Parkview Regional Health donated the first $25 to get the ball rolling for hundreds of local youth.
In September 2013, the Promise guided approximately 1,600 county K-3 students to Manchester University for the inaugural “Walk Into My Future” event, where the young students got a taste of what college can provide them as they toured the campus.
Due to the success locally, County Y CEO Clint Kugler announced earlier this year that the Promise will be seen in other communities as well. Lagrange, Noble and Whitley counties have now started and will carry out pilot programs within their own respective communities to accomplish the same goals that Wabash County has established locally.
According to Kugler, these communities were chosen for specific reasons, including their roles with the Lumina Foundation, a private, Indianapolis-based foundation that has a mission of expanding the access and success with education beyond K-12 education.
“There were strategic advantages for us to launch these initial pilot communities within the geographic proximity of northeast Indiana,” Kugler said. “Northwest Indiana is a target community for the Lumina Foundation, with our strong partnership with Parkview Health, which has come along all four of these communities as the enrollment sponsor.
“This first round of pilots, we’ve brought these on as co-owners of the Promise model. They’re helping to expand and deepen our base of learning so we can refine and strengthen the model before we take it out to communities in the State of Indiana.”
How communities became involved
Each community filled out an application process that showed that they have the need, readiness and capacity within the community to be successful. Only seven of the 10 counties in the northeast Indiana region were talked to in the process of considering expansion sites.
Certain statistics that were taken into consideration included the number of college savings plans that already exist, educational attainment rates, income and other demographical information.
Letters of support from key platforms, such as economic development groups, school superintendents, Community Foundations and YMCAs, were also accepted.
“Each county is unique and different. There are essential elements, what we call fidelity markers in our model, that each of the communities will implement, but with a lot of space to innovate locally, to take advantage of the opportunities and uniqueness within their population to bring this alive,” Kugler said.
He added that whatever happens with each Promise program, it will fall upon the responsibilities of their respective communities to make sure things go well with their local youth. The local Promise program will simply act as a representative of the State and the Indiana Education Savings Authority, which oversees as treasurer for the local initiative’s college savings plans, and many of the other assets and tools it has connected with over the last year.
Even though the local initiative is still young, Kugler defends why the Promise program leaders chose to act sooner rather than later.
“There were two approaches that we could have taken,” Kugler said. “Wait several more years and gain a base of experience within Wabash and then take it or we could expand this in a controlled pilot model so that we could have a cohort of communities that were learning and growing together.
“We saw value in that over these next two years, we’ll bring on three communities this year, three communities next year, to be able to learn from each other, so that it’s not one community trying to figure it out all on its own, but it’s this core group of communities that have a shared vision, spirit and desire to see the potential of kids unlocked.”
The participating communities
A part of that learning process will be Keith Gillenwater, President and CEO of the LaGrange County Economic Development Corp.
Gillenwater thinks that, even though it’s early, big things are coming for his community and its youth’s futures.
“I think that the community has embraced the concept wholeheartedly as they realize that there is a need here for this program,” Gillenwater said on Thursday morning. “Just yesterday, we started a Facebook page and within about eight hours had over 120 likes. We are getting support from all sectors of the community – schools, business, non-profit, healthcare, small businesses, the towns and county. It really is amazing.”
Gillenwater believes that his community is ready for the challenge.
“There are a lot of things happening all at once,” he added. “From the time we received official notice that we were selected to be a pilot community in mid-May to today, we have been running in seemingly dozens of directions: fundraising, community education, marketing, setting up the “Walk” event, participating in community events, applying for grants, getting the word out to parents, etc.
“In some ways it has been controlled chaos. That’s why I am thankful that we have a great spirit of collaboration between the Cole Family YMCA, Parkview LaGrange Hospital, and the LCEDC, as well as the other members of our steering committee. We will get this going.”
Gillenwater told the Plain Dealer that the Lagrange community has approximately 1,900 youth who could qualify for a college savings account and a goal has been set for 75 percent of them to be involved in the program.
“More importantly than a number to us, however, is to create that feeling of hope, that kids have hope for the future,” Gillenwater said. “…that kids can see that the community has hope for them, that the community is financially invested in them, that together we can change the story of LaGrange County. Selfishly, from a purely economic development standpoint, we look at this as a workforce development program for 12-15 years from now. We are developing tomorrow’s workers today.”
Chris Daughtry, superintendent of Central Noble Community Schools, thinks that the word of what the Promise in his community can achieve will snowball.
“I think that the excitement is starting to build,” Daughtry said. “The timeline for this has been really accelerated, so the news has not had a chance to reach all stakeholders, but it will very soon with the beginning of school. The communities in Noble County have had a long tradition of strong support for their children and the schools. I think you will see this continue in this program.
“Immediate support from Parkview Hospital was a great start, but I think in the future we will see other businesses step up and really support our students and start to share a vision of training and education beyond the walls of our public schools. I am personally excited about initiating a culture of high expectations for the education of children and how they transition into their adult lives and their careers.”
September McConnell, executive director of the Whitley County Community Foundation, has noticed that with awareness, come results.
“I would say that the enthusiasm is starting to spread as people are becoming more aware of what it entails,” McConnell said. “I think the idea of what a (college savings) plan is causes some confusion of how hard it is and what is included, but the more I think that we work with the community and inform them the more they’ll understand that it isn’t a hard process.
“I know that my board at the Community Foundation thinks that this is probably the best opportunity we’ve seen to back our dream for meeting new feelings of education within our community.”
Shaping program for local needs
Due to the pilot programs’ infancy, big things are planned for and expected of the future.
LagGrange County will work with Trine University, Noble County will team up with Huntington University and Whitley County will be with Manchester University for their own versions of the “Walk Into My Future” events.
Even with Wabash County’s recent success with the program, things will likely be done differently in some aspects, depending on what needs to be tweaked.
“Within each community, they will identify what their population is,” Kugler said. “One example is in Lagrange, where a high percentage of their population is Amish. Approaching Amish families is going to be different than approaching “English” families.
“Amish, in their tradition, don’t pursue education beyond eighth grade, but they do trade school certifications. These funds can be used for that. As they set out to engage their community, they’ll work with the leaders to extend this opportunity to help the Amish community to have resources to support their pursuits of those certifications and programs.”
School registrations within the three communities have begun, but are still ongoing. Preliminary numbers of how many satellite community students who started up accounts are not yet available.