How a community-wide project is helping students change their lives through science, tech and the arts
As a teen mom many years ago, Venessa Ceasar said she felt rejected, abandoned and hopeless. Now, as one of her sons prepares to graduate from college, she wants to give back to her community and provide hope to children in Wilmington.
Ceasar is the founder and executive director of Soaring as Eagles Outreach Ministry, and her organization is adding a new program to give students in Wilmington middle schools a chance at learning about different career opportunities they could pursue as they move through high school and potentially college. She also wants to give them mentors and supporters to help them along the way.
“Being that there is a lot of violence in our youth, we want to promote opportunities that will engage students to have a better life,” Ceasar said.
The program, called Inspired Minds, will expose students to different activities and careers in what she calls STEAM – Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics. The program will start with 15 or 20 students primarily at Williston and Holly Shelter Middle Schools, but Ceasar said she hopes to expand to 30 students.
Inspired Minds isn’t just an effort by Ceasar and the staff and volunteers at Soaring as Eagles – it's also a community-wide program that allows students to meet professionals in a wide variety of careers. From exposure to forensics with Wilmington Police to financial literacy courses from staff at Live Oak Bank, students will have a chance to learn different careers they could pursue after graduating, or through career and technical education courses in high school.
In addition, mentors will take students fishing and hiking and on field trips to different college campuses. They’ll also learn about a range of topics such as coding, robotics, music creation and business development.
“I am so thankful,” Ceasar said. “When the community comes together for a common goal, it gives hope.”
Ceasar said she hopes the program will provide support and structure for sixth and seventh grade students who need it. Inspired Minds includes an application process and each student should get two referrals from family members, school staff and community members. She said the goal is to reach students who are in need of extra guidance.
Soaring as Eagles is working in other ways to expand support to families in Wilmington’s Title I schools, including its Saturday Academy program, which provides math and reading tutoring to students in third through fifth grades at Freeman Elementary and students at Williston Middle School. That program will occur the first and third Saturdays of each month, January through May 2023, with free hot breakfast for students.
Soaring as Eagles also has programs to help prepare children for pre-K and kindergarten, parent empowerment sessions, classes for fathers and sons or mothers and daughters to bond and grow, and more.
For Ceasar, the effort from across the community to support Soaring as Eagles and the children involved in its programs gives her hope that the goodness, responsibility and opportunity they promote is reaching and inspiring an underserved population.
“It not only gives me hope that there’s someone out there that has love in their heart, but it’s showing the kids,” she said. “(When the kids) are looking at adults bicker and argue, that’s not very helpful at all.”
Contact reporter Sydney Hoover at shoover@gannett.com or on Twitter @sydneymhoover. Join the Education Issues in Southeastern North Carolina Facebook group to stay up-to-date on education news.
This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: New program exposes middle school students to career opportunities
