As a result, they’ve met some school needs, are working to set up a scholarship fund and class members met with seniors for a Career Exploration Day in October. They’re hoping other classes pick up on the idea and continue to pay back to their alma mater.
’95 class president Reggie Anderson, now a U.S. Army major stationed at Ft. Leavensworth, Kan., came up with the idea.
“I remembered our track coach bringing in people to talk with us, and our principal telling me about things her class had done for their school,” said Anderson.
“I wanted to let Meadowdale students know we supported them, and shared the idea with Billi Ewing and Stephen Williams, vice-president of our class. We made arrangements to meet with the school principal.
“He was very supportive, and we met again, making some concrete arrangements.
“We’d studied the school website, knew the demographics and test scores and wanted to interact with students and inspire them. Many in our class are professionals, doing well, and a lot of our success is due to the interactions we had with teachers, staff and alumni who helped steer us.”
Ewing, who still lives in the Meadowdale neighborhood, was the designated organizer. She had worked in family and community outreach at the Dayton Leadership Academy.
Ewing said, “I had the time and resources to organize things, and we had learned about some student needs.
“There was a need for bus tokens, food for athletes before games — so we provided 60 dollars worth of tokens and 100 dollars for catered food for athletes. But we still wanted to personally interact with students,” Ewing said.
Their presence was announced at one of Meadowdale’s football games, and classmates who sang at their graduation sang the alma mater at the game.
They also came up with the idea of a career exploration session with seniors.
“We made up a career survey sheet, and I took copies to the school for seniors. We wanted to match up our classmates with students interested in their fields,” said Ewing.
“We’re young enough that they could relate to us, and it was a successful event,” she said. “We shared information and tips, talked about our fields and what’s required, then paired students with alumni.”
“We were able to have 15 alumni come for the session,” said Williams, an academic adviser at Central State University who lives in Centerville. “Students were comfortable with us, and we tried to help them get from point A to point B in their education and career plans.
“It would be good to see subsequent classes do similar things with the students to pay it forward. Events like this with interaction need to be ongoing; we want to see alumni becoming a regular presence in the school.
“The teachers were enthusiastic about alumni coming back to talk to their students, maybe even just classroom by classroom.”
And principal Brian McKnight also was pleased with alumni interest and involvement. “Having a class from 20 years ago come back and give to our current students is an admirable thing and we welcome all classes to do the same,” he said.
“We try to instill the sense of community and belonging to our students, and this is a prime example of that,” McKnight said. “I am proud of my current students and it was an honor to meet some of the members of the 1995 class.”
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