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The Georgia Department of Community Affairs announced Wednesday that they have officially put into action their own program based on the Southwire 12-For-Life plan. DCA Commissioner, Mike Beatty told those gathered in Carrollton for the local program’s fifth anniversary celebration that the new program launched yesterday with five student-workers and is called Great Promise Kids. “Everything that you all have done for the last five years, has been paving the way to take this private-sector solution to some real changes we have throughout the state,” he says. “Within five years, our goal is to have this concept in every city and county in the state of Georgia.”
The local Southwire-12-For Life program started half a decade ago with an idea partially designed to help Carroll County Schools address a growing drop out rate. Carroll County Schools Superintendent, Scott Cowart says the program is successful because the young students bought into the concept. “They recognized that it gave them an opportunity that maybe they (did not have) in the past,” he says. “They have to commit in a way that in a way that many other young people don’t commit, to be able to reach the goal that they have… the goal that we have, which is for each of them to graduate.”
The local program is loaded with success stories including those of Bowdon High School graduates who are now interning with Southwire as they wait to start college in the Spring. Bianca Stevens says when both her parents lost their jobs, she questioned how she would be able to finish high school. “I was going to drop out until I heard about 12-For-Life,” she says. “It’s like, you can work and get money and stay in school.”
David Young says the most important thing he has learned is respect for people. “When I started here, I was like, sitting by myself, didn’t talk to anybody,” he says. “After one girl opened up to me, I started talking to everybody and now I have millions of friends.”
Southwire CEO Stu Thorn says while the program is obviously beneficial to students, there are benefits for others involved, as well. “It has helped those individuals… it has helped the community…it has helped the school system,” he says. “…and it has also helped Southwire. Not just in terms of exercising our philanthropic talents and building our image… that’s really not the motivation of 12-For-Life. It’s helped us make more money. This is a profitable exercise and that’s what makes in sustainable.”
249 Carroll County School students have graduated from the Southwire 12-For-Life program. 52 other students completed the program at the Florence, Alabama facility and in Heard County. Approximately 70 additional students are expected to graduate this Spring.