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The Dalton and Linda Floyd Family Mentoring Program at Coastal Carolina University is a civic/public engagement initiative preparing university students to mentor “at-risk” K-12 students in South Carolina schools in an effort to improve their academic and personal success, while increasing their overall graduation rate. The program has expanded into a rural community of Georgetown County. The expansion plan into Georgetown County in the spring of 2008 has come about not to replicate the existing program, but rather provide a modified program to meet the community and school needs and demands. The mentoring program was implemented to focus on a root problem that significantly affects student success: their ability to read, comprehend, analyze, apply written text, and to communicate effective verbally in an efficient and constructive manner. The mentoring programs in the Carvers Bay community are the Georgetown County Mentoring Program and the Summer CUB Learning Community: Communicating, Understanding and Believing.

The Georgetown County Mentoring Program and Summer CUB Learning Community: Communicating, Understanding and Believing Program is a collaborative between the Georgetown County Schools, namely Carvers Bay Middle School and Pleasant Hill, and Coastal Carolina University.

The Georgetown County Mentoring Program is geared for students in grades 6-8 at Carvers Bay Middle School who are not reading at grade level, demonstrate need, and can benefit from emotional/social/behavioral support. The mentors will meet with 6th through 8th grade students for the duration of the school year to provide enrichment activities as a continuation of the summer program, and provide campus experiences to broaden the students’ understanding and accessibility to higher education.

The Summer CUB Learning Community Program is a reading enrichment 4-week intensive program for rising 5th through 7th grade students from the Carvers Bay Middle and Pleasant Hill Elementary Schools area. The program’s focus is on reading fluency and comprehension, and oral and written language.

The overall long-term goal of the mentoring program is to improve 4th through 8th grade student’s academic and personal successes and aspirations; improve the reading fluency, analysis, and comprehension of these students; improve oral language and usage skills; and to provide an enriched summer experience for at-risk students. The school-year enriched summer program will support the school-year academic efforts, provide a safe nurturing and supportive environment, and offer enriched learning experiences in the community. This program will provide continual support and enrichment programs for the students to maintain the gains made during the summer program and prepare them for the next phase of the program. The program seek to promote confident learners and leaders of students within the program, giving them the opportunity to grow personally and academically as well as to peer mentor the program’s next cohort of students.

“I want to thank you for taking the time to put this program together for us. Thanks to you we had the best summer of our life.”
                                                                K.M. – 5th Grade student (2008)