![]() ![]() Fredrick Bailey credits adult mentors from Communities in Schools, an dropout prevention program, for helping him not only graduate from high school but also graduate with his associate’s degree from Gordon College, as well as bachelor’s degree from the University of West Georgia. Primarily, he just did not want to struggle anymore, he recalls. Often having to rely on himself for food or clean clothes, Bailey said he did not really have an “American Dream,” per se. Growing up, Bailey wanted to be a principal. Now 31, Bailey has worked in higher education, mentoring and advising students, and he currently is the Milliken Alumni Fellow at Communities in Schools, working on how the nonprofit can create internships for their students in governors’ offices and expose them to different career paths. He later earned a master’s degree in adult education from the University of Phoenix. … They gave me the means to make it out of my situation.”īailey not only graduated from high school but also went on to earn his associate’s degree from Gordon College, and then attended the University of West Georgia, where he received his bachelor’s degree in early childhood education. “Communities in Schools was just the organization that said, well we can help you. ![]() I knew I was sick and tired of living like this,” Bailey said of his life before connecting with McWhorter Bryant. “I knew that I didn’t want to live like this. Eventually, Bailey even moved out of his home to live with the bus driver, Jerome Cofield, and his family for the remainder of high school. He started attending an afterschool program, with a bus that would take him home at night. He got glasses, behavioral counseling, food vouchers and health insurance as a result of McWhorter Bryant connecting him to various programs and resources. (Courtesy of Fredrick Bailey)įor Bailey, meeting Cynthia McWhorter Bryant, his site coordinator, changed his life forever. Fredrick Bailey in elementary school (left) and high school. The site coordinator, an adult not directly affiliated with the school but still within its walls, acts as a mentor and a one-stop resource for students, connecting them to all kinds of social services and programs they might not otherwise know about. The national nonprofit organization, designed to be a dropout prevention program, situates itself on-site in schools and uses local affiliates and site coordinators. She referred him to a program called Communities in Schools. One day in middle school, one of Bailey’s teachers realized he was struggling to see the blackboard. Bailey acted out in class and sometimes stole food to overcome harrowing hunger. Finding dinner was enough of a challenge, never mind schoolwork. He attended several different elementary schools in his early years, as his father and stepmother moved from place to place. Raised in rural La Grange, Georgia, about 60 miles southwest of Atlanta, Bailey often returned home to a house with no electricity and sometimes with no food. “And I’m having to take extra clothing to school.” ![]() ![]() “Often times clothes didn’t dry during the night, so I’m standing waiting for the bus in sixth grade, and everything I have on is wet,” Bailey recalls. He cleaned himself and washed his clothes after school with the harvested water. Fredrick Bailey remembers the white bucket he used to set out on the porch to catch rainwater, a recurring task when bills went unpaid and the utility company cut off the water supply. ![]()
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