This week's innovation provides computers, mentors, community service and multimedia to get at-risk youth to consider college. ScholarShop is a flexible program that provides a safe place with caring adults for students to engage in self discovery, explore career options, and access and prepare for postsecondary opportunities, including how to access and utilize financial aid.
Students also gain valuable community service experience.
More than 95 percent of the students who participated in ScholarShops are either preparing for or have gone on to college. In its first three years, ScholarShop has been established in 65 communities in 22 states with an additional 25 sites identified for Fiscal Year 2000. Some 2,000 at risk students have been or currently are being served, with those numbers expected to double in Fiscal Year 2000. Corporations and businesses that sponsor individual sites play an integral role in sustaining the program. Cargill was the first and primary corporate sponsor of ScholarShop, providing funds and volunteers to support fourteen of the thirty sites operating in the program's first two years.