AT&T is donating $750 thousand dollars to an Anchorage program aimed at helping at-risk and homeless youth graduate high school. “Back on Track” is a collaboration between United Way, the Anchorage School District, and Covenant House Alaska.
Carlette Mack with the Covenant House said the money will be used to expand three programs that help older youth recover high school credits and graduate. They will begin offering night classes at Covenant House through ASD’s AVAIL High School, create a summer school program, and expand services at North Star Hospital. There’s been an AVAIL classroom during the day at the shelter for about two decades. Mack said Covenant House will also hire two new mobile case managers.
“They’ll be spending time in the classroom here at Covenant House, they’ll be going to North Star,” Mack said. “They’ll also be part of the summer school program. And so if a young person just needs some extra support, access to resources, that’s what the staff will do. We have money for transportation, we have money for food. That’s all built into this grant.”
Nineteen-year-old Diamond Walters moved into Covenant House in April because she was having trouble with her family. She said she had dropped out of school because she was always taking care of her relatives and wasn’t motivated to get up in the morning to go to class. But soon after arriving at the youth shelter, she enrolled in a diploma program at NineStar and began working. She said her attitude has changed.
“I want to do something with my life,” Walters said. “I wanna work with cars, and I want to work with children. So I was like I’m gonna have to go to college for that so I have to finish school. So now I’m like super motivated to finish school and I’m going to be done by December.”
The grant runs for two years and is part of AT&T’s nationwide Aspire program, which aims to support students who are in need –become college and career ready.
Anne Hillman is the healthy communities editor at Alaska Public Media and a host of Hometown, Alaska. Reach her atahillman@alaskapublic.org. Read more about Annehere.
