Rochester, N.Y. -- If you want to get Danny Wegman talking, ask him about helping inner-city students graduate and find success. The Hillside Work-Scholarship Connection Program has been shown to work at helping kids graduate, start careers and learn important life skills.
Thousands of Rochester teens at risk of not graduating from high school are improving their odds dramatically.
The seed for the Work-Scholarship Connection was planted by the late Bob Wegman, whose son Danny continues his father's passion for it. For a man who sells so many things, Wegman says his inability to sell this is frustrating.
“Because boy, do the kids need it and no one understands it,” he said.
Danny Wegman says Work-Scholarship is so effective he can't understand why it hasn't spread further, to the state level for example.
“The same kids, just with a different intervention going on. So I just know, I see it every day, what this means. So I guess if I have a failure, I've been unable to sell this concept to the right people,” he said.
The concept is simple. Youth advocates work with students to teach them life, career and academic skills. And local employers, Wegmans and others, hire them.
“These kids need to work to understand what it's like to work. To show up on time. Or to show up at all and then to work as a team,” Wegman said.
The latest numbers show a 64% graduation rate for Rochester work scholarship students, compared to an overall on time graduation rate of 46% in the Rochester City School District.
Briani Jackson was a work-scholarship student in the 1990s. Today, she's Dr. Briani jackson. She comes from a family that values education. So for her, the program was a supplement.
Hillside Work-Scholarship now focuses solely on high-risk kids, and she knows many of them need the intervention.
"I think this program could definitely help the kids who don't have the extra help at home, and maybe not even have it at school. They're very uplifting and just trying to teach you that education is important, that work is important," Jackson said.
And Danny Wegman says the benefits go both ways. Students who know their job is their ticket to success tend to do the job well.
“As I look at the service that we give our customers today, it's far better than we did 30 years ago. And that's because we've got spectacular young folks there who are determined to do a good job and that's work scholarship,” Wegman said.
One study estimated that the 350 Work-Scholarship students from the class of 2010 will generate savings to the community of about $8 million by the time they turn 30. That's from increased earning power and less dependence on social services.
