Great Falls Optimist Club

Great Falls Optimist Club Contributes $3,500 to Reach For College

            So 18 Students Can Attend Saturday Academy

 Great Falls, VA. – The Great Falls Optimist Club recently donated $3,500 to Reach For College so that 18 local high school students could attend its Saturday Academy. Called “one of the best small charities in the Greater Washington region” by the 2007-2008 Catalogue for Philanthropy, Reach for College established the Saturday Academy to give students invaluable opportunities to venture outside their neighborhoods, learn about the historical and cultural highlights in D.C., and expand their horizons.

 “We were so impressed by the enormous impact Reach for College has on local high school students, and by the way it motivates young people to attend college who would otherwise not consider it, that we decided the Club would support the organization’s innovative Saturday Academy program,” said Joda Coolidge, director of membership.  

The local nonprofit is dedicated to promoting equity by increasing and supporting the number of traditionally disadvantaged students who pursue and complete post-secondary education. The Saturday Academy was added to its regular school-year program to help prepare students for college by expanding their experiences through “homegrown tourist” trips to museums, through walking tours of historic areas and buildings, attending plays and volunteering with the Earth Conservation Corps. Participants complete assignments and required reading about each experience.  

“The Optimist Club is all about bringing out the best in youth,” Coolidge said. “Reach for College certainly embodies our mission. It has also had tremendous success in an area typically overlooked in inner-city schools – motivating students to attend college by showing them the lifetime value of continuing education, then giving them the tools to get accepted and successfully complete that goal.”

 “We are delighted that the Great Falls Optimist Club decided to support our Academy program with such a generous contribution,” said Co-Director Deb Insel. “Those funds will allow us to enroll 18 students from D.C. schools for one semester beginning this September. We couldn’t be happier, and I know the students will get so much from this experience as they venture out of their neighborhoods to learn more about their city.”  

It costs $200 per student to run the Academy program and $160 per student to provide the in-school Reach for College! program. “To us, this translates into an incredible bang for the buck,” Coolidge said. “For every $160-200 someone’s life is changed for the better.”