Like many Staples students, the scholars at A Better Chance of Westport are very busy.
Seniors are applying to colleges. Freshmen are adapting to high school. Everyone is balancing academics, extracurriculars, and everything else.
Plus, the young men in ABC’s Glendarcy House live away from home, with all the adjustments and stresses that brings.
Still, they have time to give back to their adopted community.
“It’s really important, because they’ve gotten so much support from the town,” says resident director Tamika Thompson.
“They want to help. And they have fun doing it.”
The A Better Chance scholars outside Glendarcy House …
The A Better Chance scholars volunteer in many ways. In September they helped set up the Westport Rotary Club’s LobsterFest. The year before, they served food there.
They’ve sorted food and filled bags at Homes with Hope’s Gillespie Ceter.
They’re always looking for other opportunities too.
The ABC program sometimes flies under the radar. The young men who leave their home towns, live together, and are thrown into the challenging but exciting maelstrom of Staples High School do not get the credit they deserve for their achievements in the classroom, on the stage and playing fields, and elsewhere.
And they certainly don’t get it for the hours they give back to Westport.
Thank you, Anderson, Jeffrey, Mehiel, Alan, Ismael and Yashai. You are this week’s Unsung Heroes!
(Do you know an Unsung Hero? Email 06880blog@gmail.com. “06880” is proud to honor them — and tell many other tales of town too. Please click here to help us do that, by supporting this hyper-local blog.)
… and inside.