Chuck Licis-Masson, executive director of Take Stock in Children of Monroe County, joined Good Morning Keys on Keys Talk 96.9/102.5FM yesterday morning to talk about the program.
Eighty four students from Key Largo to Key West in grades six through 10 signed up for Take Stock in Children recently.
Licis-Masson said, “They are meeting with their mentors. It’s a scholarship mentorship program that we offer. All of our students have to qualify academically as well as economically. It is an economically deserving scholarship. We purchase our scholarships through the Florida Prepaid Stanley Tate Stars program through the Florida Prepaid College Foundation, and those are state matched. So that’s the reason why we have that income guideline for our students coming in, but as well as grades and so our students met those two requirements, and they are now meeting, as I said, with their volunteer mentors. We have mentors who volunteer their time, 30 minutes to 45 minutes, one day a week during the school year to meet with our students and to guide them through middle school, high school, help them learn those self advocacy skills that are important for success in college and career. When they successfully complete our program and they graduate high school, they have access to that two plus two, which is 120 credit hour scholarship and possibly a two year dormitory plan to help with two years of housing as well.”
There are new programs in Take Stock that can really help expand horizons of students.
Licis-Masson said, “We’ve added two on to our partnership with the Experiment in International Living. We’ve been working with the experiment probably for 15, 18 years now, for quite a while, and those are those programs that our kids go on overseas. One of the continents of the world. So it’s either South America, Europe, Asia or Africa, and they visit a country. There’s a program where they visit the country, they live with a family for a short period of time, and it’s a cultural immersion program, and it gives them the opportunity to learn some independency, and again, those skills that are needed to be successful in life and college and our students, we’ve been fundraising on the side for this for the longest time. One of our philanthropists and board members and strong Take Stock supporters, John Padgett, has been instrumental in supporting this program, as well as a lot of his friends and other philanthropists in the county and abroad. We decided to look at two other opportunities for our students who want to possibly remain domestic and not be gone so long from from home, because those experiment trips are four to six weeks. We’re now working with ID Tech and Summer Springboard. Those are two other programs, and they offer those two week programs on college campuses. And what we did is we’ve selectively chosen college campuses within a non stop flight from either Key West or Miami to help facilitate that process so they’re not going through a layover somewhere and trying to get you hopscotched across the country to get to one of the universities. So we selected a few of those and they include Georgia Tech in Atlanta, as well as Georgetown University in Washington, DC. So you have your direct flight to Atlanta, your direct flight to Washington, DC, and then Duke University as well. We have a direct flight to Charlotte, and then they can take a bus over to Durham, North Carolina to attend that program. And then the ID Tech we included, as well as Princeton in New Jersey for the non stop flight up to that neck of the woods. These are really exciting programs. We did this last year, the kids came back. We had a good participation, probably about 18, 19 students who attended these programs, and they came back with glowing reviews. ID Tech offers a lot of STEM based programs, Data Science Academy and Python and machine learning, for example, Nvidia AI and machine learning academy, Battle Bots robotics. If you’re familiar with battle bots, you build a robot, and you have these competitions, game design as well. A lot of our students are interested in game design, in the IT world. Animation as well, at New Jersey animation portfolio with Adobe. Then summer springboard, tey are also STEM related. They have other programs such as astrophysics, biomedical engineering, mechanical engineering, emergency medicine, neurobiology, trial law, business strategy and decision making, as well as entrepreneurship, game development, veterinary medicine, and it goes on and on. So those are some great opportunities. And what we found for our students who participated, they choose the programs that they think that they’re interested in and nine times out of 10, it affirms their choice and their selection. But we also have students who get into that program and think this is not quite what I had expected. I’m going to redirect and choose a different career path. So it’s beneficial in both counts, it gives them the opportunity to learn more about their field of interest, but also to explore those fields and think, is this really something I want to study, or do I want to do something different?”
There will be informational sessions for those two programs. One is at Coral Shores High School on November 17 at 6:30; Marathon Middle High School on November 18 at 6:30 and Key West High School on November 19 at 6:30.
Licis-Masson said, “We have a representative from ID Tech who will be present at all three of those and she’ll talk about the programs for the ID Tech offers. We will have students who participated in Summer Springboard last year, as well as the Experiment inInternational Living. We have a representative representing that organization, and all three will have an opportunity to give a presentation about their program, to the audience members and to the Take Stock students. So we’re encouraging our Take Stock students, their parents and their mentors to attend to learn more. But this is also open to all students in the county. The Take Stock program is offering scholarships to Take Stock students, but it does not preclude another student from signing up and paying the program fees or fundraising to cover the program fees as well. I know the Experiment, they have some scholarships as well for the non Take Stock students. They can apply for the Experiment in International Living as well. So the costs are, they vary from about $5,000 to $8,000 for the program, depending if you’re going overseas or if you’re staying domestic. The reason for the $5,000 for the domestic programs you live in on a college in a college dorm. So when you’re at Princeton, or you’re at Duke in Georgetown or Georgia Tech, you are living in a dorm, you’re on campus 24/7 attending those courses, often, sometimes it’s a college professor teaching the class as well, so you have that experience. Then over the weekend, they do excursions, depending on where you are, if you’re in Atlanta, if you’re in Princeton, or if you’re in Washington, DC or in Durham, they have excursions over the weekend. So they keep you busy and entertained, basically, over the weekend, with your group of attendees, either visiting some museums or going to different parks or wherever the case may be, but it’s all inclusive. Meals are included as well. So it’s it’s a excellent opportunity two weeks for our students in the county to to get off the rock, so to speak, and learn a new skill and experience a university campus.”
Mentors are always needed for Take Stock.
Licis-Masson said, “We could not do this program without our volunteer mentors. We fundraise to purchase those scholarships, and of course, we could always use more funds to purchase those scholarships to accommodate more students. But we really can’t do it without our volunteer mentors. My thanks goes out to all of those who are volunteering and mentoring for Take Stock in Children. We have mentors who they’re on their fourth, fifth or sixth students now. They’ve been with the program for a long time, and we have brand new mentors who are experiencing the joy of mentoring for the first time. We do need more mentors. We always need mentors. We have students on a wait list coming into the program after the first of the year. Once grades are posted at the end of this quarter, we put them on an academic wait list to make sure that they’re ready and to give them the motivation to improve their grades, from a D to a C in one particular class, for example. We need mentors for those students who are coming into the program in January, February. We also have more applications to consider. It’s an ongoing, rolling process, and so 84 is not the the end number. I can see us accepting quite a few more and probably hitting 100 new students again this year.”
For more information, click here: https://monroecountyedfound.com/about-take-stock