Ramon, Chris, Dante, and Wesley joined Erika and Jon as students at Camden County College last month. After completing all applications, tests, and forms, these four proud production trainees embarked on their college education, a huge step in the pursuit of their DREAMS. “My favorite class so far is stress management,” said Wesley.
“It is helping me to balance all the activities that I have going on right now.” Erika is in her fourth semester at Camden County and is preparing to transfer to Rutgers in Camden. Meanwhile, Geehem is a junior at Leap Academy and is taking a political science class at Rutgers this semester! So chances are, if you stop by State Street this spring, you’ll bump into one of our college youth reading, writing, learning, and succeeding as a college student!
Recently, Hopeworks re-thought parental involvement. We re-thought both our definition of “parent” and the goals of parental involvement with Hopeworks. We believe that it is important for each trainee in our program to have someone who understands what the trainee is working toward and what we expect of our youth. This person should be respected by the trainee. This person may be a parent, legal guardian, grandparent, aunt, uncle, older cousin, close friend, boyfriend or girlfriend, neighbor, teacher, mentor, or anyone else who cares for the youth and whom the trainee trusts. Their role is to encourage the trainee to do well and to motivate the trainee to achieve goals. Our goal is to have the outside support person designated by the trainee visit our program within three weeks of the trainee’s start date.
