mmilliken@heraldsun.com; 419-6684
DURHAM -- The kindness of strangers could help 55 Hillside High School students spend two days visiting colleges in Atlanta next month.
"It's great to expose them to the college environment," said Ronda Bullock, a coordinator in Hillside's AVID program. (The name is short for Advancement Via Individual Determination.) "Some of them really don't know what it's like."
Getting high schoolers to understand college is a part of AVID. Getting them into college is the program's main goal.
In AVID, youngsters are taught study and organizational skills, given information about college, allowed to hold wide-ranging weekly discussions about college and high school with classroom visitors, and encouraged to engage in community service and college trips.
"They work closely with kids to make sure they stay on track grade- [and] academic-wise to enter the college of their choices," said Winnie Scott, whose daughter Brittany is in the Hillside AVID program. "We saw that as an avenue there."
To help fuel the trip, Hillside AVID organizers are turning to the Web. Ronda Bullock, one of the program coordinators for AVID, has posted a request at DonorsChoose.org for sponsorship for some of the $10,272 they need for the three-day, two-night trip. As of late last week, eight donors had supplied $470, defraying about 10 percent of the amount being sought online.
Through a partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, DonorsChoose.org is offering to kick in nearly $4,700. The foundation money will be granted only after private donors contribute $4,700.
That's about half of the education-related costs of the trip, which will also include a visit to the Six Flags Over Georgia amusement park April 2, the final day.
Stops are planned at public, private and historically black campuses in Atlanta over the first two days. Students also will have time to visit a museum, a mall, a historic neighborhood and a dinner theater.
The AVID students have worked the concessions stands at Duke men's basketball games and sold discount coupons to Belk department stores to underwrite the trip, which will cost less than $200 per student. Bullock said last week she did not know exactly how much those endeavors had raised.
Winnie Scott has an associate's degree, but no one in her family has a bachelor's degree. She said visiting colleges with AVID and Upward Bound has prompted her daughter Brittany to change her mind about what schools would and would not be a good fit for her.
The college trips are invaluable, Scott feels. "It's a great opportunity for the kids who may not have gotten a chance to tour other schools if it had not been for AVID," she said.
Brittany Scott plans to attend the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. But she's looking forward to the March 31 trip along with her fellow AVID juniors and about 20 AVID students from other grade levels.
"Basically just seeing what all of them have to offer, although I don't plan to go out of state to college," Scott said.
AVID students Brandon Marsh and Chadijah Pratt, both juniors, said that the trips provide important guideposts for their futures.
"For me, it's knowledge about more colleges that I didn't really think about going to in the first place," Marsh said.
"We can see how does it fit us, if it provides the majors that we're looking forward to, pricing, how many people are in classes," Pratt said.
