Changing our City Schools from the Inside - Telling it 'Straight Up'

Baby boomers of today can hardly imagine what life is like in our urban schools. Metal detectors in the doorways scan students as they enter the building each day. Guards sign in every visitor to the building. Police officers are on patrol, trying to prevent fights and crimes. Yet in the midst of it all, there are students trying to learn, getting the best education they can as they prepare for life.

Unfortunately many come from troubled inner city homes, infested with drugs, incest, violence, and apathy. But there is always a remnant who wants to be free, who reaches out to anyone who will offer them a helping hand up. Straight Up Youth Inc. is one of those helping hands, changing one student at a time.

They come after the final bell, looking for a soda, a piece of fruit, some chips, and a friendly smile. They discover there are people here who love them, give them a hug, a word of encouragement, and speak to them in terms they can understand about life, telling them the truthStraight Up!

STRAIGHT UP After School Program is very much a program with one objective to restore hope to troubled teens by addressing basic life issues and giving them a model of healthy living by weekly introducing them to people who have risen above their own struggles.They always use a foundation of proven principles.

It began just three years ago, when Rosa Stong, came home from a missions trip that had taken her to Australia and New Zealand, where she a ...