Published: January 25, 2007 10:03 pm      

New organization to ‘inspire’ students to go to college

By Tommy Mann Jr.

The Orange Leader



If a newly created organization has its way, more children in Orange could find themselves having full scholarships to college.

Inspire 12 is a group interested in helping the children of Orange — and hopefully the children of Orange County one day — obtain college scholarships based on school performance.

The organization is headed up by Co-Chairpersons Dr. William Rutledge and Howard Adams. Other members of the group include Tremain Lewis, Brad Rutledge, Calvin Adams and Calvin Thomas IV from California.

Rutledge, born and raised in Orange and a graduate of Stark High School, knows the importance of a good education and wants every child in Orange to have the same opportunity.

Rutledge said the Inspire 12 program is being modeled after the very successful Kalamazoo Promise, which is used in the Kalamazoo Public School system in Michigan.

The Kalamazoo Promise scholarship program provides up to four years of tuition and mandatory fees for post-secondary education if a student meets certain requirements. The funds are available to use at any public university or community college in the state of Michigan

Rutledge said Inspire 12 intends to do the same for Orange students if funding can be acquired.

“We wanted to figure out a way to help kids with the dream of going to college,” Rutledge said. “(College) has become so expensive over the last several years we know not every family can afford to put a child through college.”

Rutledge said the requirements which will be established include the student must live in Orange, thus targeting West Orange-Stark and Little Cypress-Mauriceville students, plus the student must be enrolled in his or her respective school from ninth through 12th grade and maintain a “B” average throughout high school.

“In Kalamazoo, this program has brought a lot of life back into that community,” Rutledge said. “We want to do the same here.”

Rutledge said Inspire 12 will be a non-profit organization and will be self funded, meaning all money donated by groups, businesses and individuals will go toward funding scholarships for the students and not to the members within the organization.

According to Rutledge, the Kalamazoo Promise provides funding for a community of about 80,000 people with three major school districts.

“We are anticipating it will take $15 million to $20 million in funding to start this program,” Rutledge said. “Kalamazoo started with something around $25 million and Denver, which also recently started this kind of program, had around $50 million.”

To get the project started, Rutledge said a fellowship dinner will be held in February at Sunset Grove Country Club.

“We’re inviting a lot of people who will be very important to the success of this program,” Rutledge said. “We are contacting key people now, such as various school officials, as well as other representatives from churches, businesses and several local and state dignitaries.”

Rutledge said he would like to connect the new program to the annually held Tremain Lewis Football Camp each summer, as well as creating a softball camp for girls.

“We want to tie in computer education with these events,” Rutledge said. “We think a big way to help some of these children is by creating computer learning centers throughout the community. We know not every family in Orange can afford a computer, and this would be a big help to many children who might otherwise not have this opportunity.

Rutledge said he would like to see as many as six computer learning centers be stationed across Orange to help advance the reading and math levels of children in school.

“Our goal is to be up and running by this time next year,” he said. “But we still have a long way to go.”



Reach this reporter at 409-883-3571, ext. 2619 or tmann@orangeleader.com