Dwight Fetterman (FGCU) Soldiers Help Students Achieve Dreams

Since 1992 Soldiers with Fort Eustis, Virginia’s 7th Sustainment Brigade have volunteered at the Achievable Dream Academy, a special school designed to help struggling or underachieving children thrive.

Each day at 7:30 a.m. two buses of Soldiers arrive at the elementary school. They line up along the entrance of the building and through the hallways, greeting the students with a firm handshake and a good morning. They have breakfast with the children, lead them in a morning prep rally that includes saying the Pledge of Allegiance and singing the National Anthem, and perform uniform inspections. These Soldiers are a key part of the character building curriculum designed to help the young students succeed.

The Achievable Dream Academy is in one of the most struggling areas in the state of Virginia. The students there share the common bond of being born into poverty. Most have at least one parent in prison and lack positive adult role models to guide them through life.  Achievable Dream Academy gathers together the lowest performers and most at-risk students in that community and challenges them to be dreamers, with the help of some pretty amazing Soldier role-models.

In the Soldiers the students see a glimpse into a future they can achieve - success, responsibility, pride in who they are and what they have accomplished. I can think of no better character role models for young people.

The Soldiers have formed a special bond with the students, and frequently spend time with them and their families outside of the school day. It is a committment that extends beyond the one-hour morning routine and demonstrates the personal responsibility the Soldiers feel toward the young people they mentor. It’s no irony that approximately 10 percent of the Achievable Dream students choose to enlist in the U.S. Army following high-school, even though most all of them typically receive full scholarships to college from private organizations. They see a career path worth emulating in the 7th Sustainment Brigade Soldiers.
The most moving part of the morning is when the Soldiers lead students in the morning pep rally. The students and Soldiers take turns shouting lines like “I am somebody” and “I will say no to drugs.” These lines may seem trivial, but to students who face drug dealers at their doorsteps and peer pressure to fail, they are deeply moving motivators, and you can see it in their faces. The Soldiers take those lines very seriously, and their investment in them makes a clear impact in the students.

This entry was posted on 19. April 2009 at 21:56 and is filed under Introduction to Sociology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.