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Volunteers provide guidance to students
By Denise Dick
Youngstown
Brandy Bates and LaNeesha Dixon want to provide East High School students with the guidance they lacked when they were younger and considering college.
Bates, a graduate of Newton Falls High School and Youngstown State University, and Dixon, a Rayen School and University of Akron graduate, work at East as AmeriCorps volunteers.
Ohio College Guides is a state AmeriCorps program that’s working with the Mahoning Valley College Access Program to bolster the number of East students who go to college.
MVCAP is working to increase college access services in the school with plans to add Warren City Schools. The agency received a $50,000 grant from the Raymond John Wean Foundation to ramp up those efforts in the two cities’ schools.
Dixon works with ninth- and 11th-graders and Bates with 10th- and 12th-graders.
“We get information for them, and we’re available all day,” Bates said.
They visit classrooms, talk to the students during their lunches and before school.
They help students learn about the classes and tests necessary to go to college, the costs, grants and available financial aid and how to apply.
Both Bates and Dixon are first-generation college students, which helps them to relate to the students.
Like many of the students she deals with, Bates didn’t grow up with plans to go to college. No one started a college savings account for her.
She decided late in her high-school career that she wanted to go to college. She took out a lot of loans, changed her major several times and graduated in six years with $60,000 in student-loan debt.
Dixon went to college part-time and graduated in seven years with $54,000 in debt.
A lot of students she talks to want to attend Ohio State University. She tells them about the costs.
“You have to build relationships with them,” Dixon said.
Atty. Paul Dutton, president of the MVCAP board of trustees, said MVCAP’s strategic plan includes the objective to increase the number of students from Mahoning and Trumbull counties who pursue post-secondary education.
Youngstown and Warren are the two districts with the lowest numbers of students who pursue education beyond high school.
A lot of students in suburban districts get guidance from their families about how to prepare for college, Dutton said.
“Inner-city school students generally don’t know this,” he said.
Colleges generally require students to take either the SAT or ACT for admission. Those tests require a fee that economically-disadvantaged families may have a difficult time paying.
“We help students understand we can get fee waivers” for students with financial need, Dutton said.
The whole process of applying for college and completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid can be challenging.
The AmeriCorps workers help students navigate through that in a non-threatening and supportive way, the board president said.
Junior Kaylyn Gilmore, 17, wants to be a lawyer after a stint in the Army upon graduation. She learned from the college guides about the classes she has to take to prepare for that career.
Senior Chmicka Kennedy, 17, is applying to college now.
“They taught us to start early looking for stuff that interests us,” she said.
Chmicka also learned more about how financial aid works and the importance of applying for it early.
Edna Douglas, assistant principal at East, said Bates and Dixon have been a godsend.
“The teachers are very pleased,” she said.
The two women do a good job of relating to the high-school students, Douglas said.
AmeriCorps members commit to 1,700 hours of community service over 11 months. They earn a $5,550 education award and full-time AmeriCorps personnel also receive a $12,100 living stipend during their service.
Besides the college guidance, Bates and Dixon also organize regular community-service projects at the school including a Breast Cancer Awareness campaign and a clothing drive for the Rescue Mission of the Mahoning Valley.