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| Colts, company hand out kids' shoes, hats - Indianapolis Star Posted: 30 Nov 2010 12:05 PM PST Advertisement You will be redirected to the page you want to view in seconds. ADVERTISEMENT Top Stories ADVERTISEMENT Archives View the last seven days See our paid archives for news older than a week. Unusual Photos of the Week FOLLOW US ON TWITTER & FACEBOOK IndyStar's Headlines are now available on Facebook and Twitter. Don't miss a single headline! SAVE MONEY Find coupons, list your stuff for free, and discover hot deals. Get IndyStar on the Go with our iphone apps Use our mobile sites and iPhone apps to keep updated with what's going on around Central Indiana. Subscribe! sign up for home delivery today Celebrity News From USA TODAY and Associated Press This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
| High-risk kids get coaching they need to build skills, self-esteem - Orlando Sentinel Posted: 05 Dec 2010 06:09 AM PST She's the little girl in the third seat of row 4 with fingers crossed in both hands as her second-grade teacher hands back the math tests. Math is not Allana Seegert's best subject. The boy on her left gets a D. The girl to her right gets an A. The paper Ms. Blackmon lays on Allana's desk says 83 percent, a B, and Allana's heart sinks just a bit. She was hoping for an A. Her mother is going to be disappointed. "She wants me to get A's on all my tests," Allana says. Allana has a soft voice and a sweet smile that shows the gap between her two front teeth. She speaks as much with her body as her mouth — arms that shoot up and out, hands that flutter, a head that tilts to the right. Her face is round, her eyes the color of chocolate. Her left ear pokes through straight brown hair. Allana is the third of Marianne Seegert's three children, all daughters. Seegert is a single mom, divorced from the girls' father for three years. Like most of the children at Engelwood Elementary in Azalea Park, Allana qualifies for free or reduced-priced breakfast and lunch. And because she lives in a poor neighborhood where drug and alcohol abuse is common, Allana also was eligible for the Alpha summer program for high-risk kids run by the Center for Drug-Free Living, one of the many nonprofit agencies supported by the Orlando Sentinel Family Fund Holiday Campaign. The summer program and school-year Alpha counselors help 75 students at six elementary schools develop the skills and self-esteem they need to resist the temptations of drug and alcohol, even if the people around them cannot. "We tell them that even if your mom and dad, your brother and your neighbor are doing drugs, you can say it's not for me. It's a choice," says Alpha counselor Carmen Fuentes, who has been at Engelwood for six years. "You can't stop anyone from doing anything, but you can make a choice for yourself." Allana entered the summer program a smart but shy girl who lacked self-confidence among a group of 16 kids. This does not describe the girl Shanita Blackmon knows in her class today. "She's one of my top students. She's independent. She's a leader," Blackmon says. "She can be a little bossy at times." The things Allana learned in the summer program are also taught by the Alpha counselors to Engelwood students during the school day: how to make good choices, how to pick your friends, how to resolve conflicts, how to be nice instead of mean. "You can say nice words instead of mean words," Allana says. "I don't want to be mean to the people who are mean to me because I'm short." She puts a lot of thought into her wardrobe each morning, making sure her pants and shirt match. If she's wearing her pink hooded sweatshirt, she wears her gray jeans and pink-and-gray tennis shoes. On the day when everything matched, she dressed completely in purple. She doesn't understand her older sisters who like wearing mismatched socks — on purpose. Allana has all the promise of every child who is bright and well-behaved and is learning how to be nice instead of mean and doesn't want to disappoint her mother with a B in math. But she is also the practical offspring of a mom who worked in a bowling alley and a dad who is a bartender. When she grows up, Allana wants to be a waitress. Or a veterinarian. "She tells me she wants to be a vet," says her mother, Marianne Seegert. "That way she could make a lot of money to buy a cell phone." Jeff Kunerth can be reached at jkunerth@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5392. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
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