Guiding Light

Sometimes, all you need is a nudge in the right direction and you're off.

This, in the simplest terms, is the philosophy behind the Boca Raton nonprofit PROPEL - an acronym for People Reaching Out to Provide Education and Leadership. Founded in 2004 by local philanthropists Jim and Marta Batmasian, PROPEL gives under-privileged, first-generation American students the support they need to start out life right.

"The intent was to take students in high-risk areas and get them off the street after school when it was the most common time for those students to get into trouble," says Gregg Francis, PROPEL's CEO. "They provided a safe haven, food and tutoring to eventually break these students' cycle of poverty."

What started as a program with eight to 12 students has grown to around 100 today.

"We have a roughly 8,000-foot-facility, and we work with 100 students ranging from 12-22 years old," he says. "Ninety-five percent of the students are first-generation Americans. The majority of our students have emigrated from Haiti, and 95 percent of them live below the poverty line."

The program is completely free to students, who are admitted after a short interview. The average GPA of a PROPEL student is 3.38, and 90 percent of the program's graduates have gone to college - many of them on scholarships.

Beyond school and language studies, students are also taught to give back to their community and are empowered to find ways to help. Francis points out that the recent We Dine Together initiative that has swept the country, with students seeking out kids eating alone at school and inviting them to join them for lunch, started at PROPEL.

"So not only did they eat with people they ordinarily wouldn't have, but it blossomed into something beautiful where they learned about each other's cultures, and it went viral and helped a lot of kids that were suffering with depression in school," says Francis.

He notes that helping young people get on the right path early can have far-reaching effects beyond the life of each student: "Our goal is to break our students' cycle of poverty, but we also want them to be a benefit to society." O

For more information, call 561-955-8553 or visit propelyourfuture.org.