School wasn’t always important to Carolina Perez. As an eighth grader, she hung with the wrong crowd. The crowd that got in trouble for disrupting class and fighting. But Perez has changed since then, during her four years in RAYS (Renton Area Youth and Family Services) Rites of Passage Program, a support group for youth struggling in school.
The Renton High School junior is now working to become a doctor. She’s enrolled in the Running Start Program at Seattle Community College.
“The group has helped me see that I can do anything I want if I work hard,” Perez told a RAYS employee. “Getting a good education is the most important thing in my life now.”
Perez has made so much progress, she’s the recipient of the first RAYS4Hope Scholarship, which will be awarded at RAYS 2008 Signature Showcase Dinner & Auction on Saturday, May 31.
Susan Richards will also receive an award at the dinner and auction. Richards, executive director of Communities In Schools of Renton, will receive the RAYS4Hope Award.
Daimen Crump nominated Perez for the $500 scholarship. As a Rites of Passage mentor, he has worked with Perez four years, since she was referred to RAYS by her Dimmitt Middle School counselor.
Rites of Passage participants are middle and high school students who meet once a week as a group and once a week as individuals.
“Basically we just teach them different skills and they help themselves,” Crump says.
Those skills cover anger management and learning to better deal with peers and family members. Participants also do volunteer work.
“The key to the program is teaching them skills they need to learn to get along better in everyday life in the environment they’re in,” says Rich Brooks, RAYS executive director.
RAYS has helped Perez learn to get along well in life.
“She’s taking all the right steps now to be successful,” Crump says. “I think she understands her behavior in the past that wasn’t necessarily appropriate.”
In some ways, Perez’s story is typical of students who go through RAYS Rites of Passage, Brooks says.
Crump considers Perez in the middle of the group of students he has seen. Some had more severe challenges, some less.
“She was right in the middle, on the verge of going either way,” he says. “She chose the right way, but it could have made a very bad situation if she continued with those people.”
Students are usually referred to RAYS by school counselors or nurses. They are struggling — dealing with challenges like depression, substance abuse, poverty, parents who are divorced or separated or in jail — challenges that often lead to academic and behavior troubles.
Nearly 70 percent of those RAYS helps have incomes at or below the federal poverty level. At any given time, 15 percent are homeless or on the verge of homelessness.
RAYS has several programs to help these people. In addition to Rites of Passage, RAYS runs a drug treatment program for teens and their families; parenting classes and support groups, including a program for young parents; mental health services; emergency grants; and a summer program for students to get out and simply have fun. RAYS
counselors are also stationed at Renton and Tukwila schools.
“A lot of what we do is help kids recover from some very challenging life events they’ve been through,” Brooks says. “We’re pulling them back in and saying, ‘You do have a future. We’d like to work with you on that and help you realize your goals, whatever they are.”
RAYS has been supporting youth since its formation in 1970 by Renton School District and citizens concerned about Renton’s drug problem. RAYS remained a school district program until 1975, when it incorporated as a nonprofit.
RAYS has added a number of programs since those early days, and now boasts an 80-percent success rate.
Success is often defined by participants achieving or working toward their goals. Like Perez working to become a doctor.
RAYS helps about 800 youth a year, in first grade through high school. About 600 of those youth are in Renton and 200 in Tukwila. But for all those RAYS helps, there are always more left unhelped. There’s simply too many needy families and not enough money.
“We get many more referrals for kids than we can possibly deal with,” Brooks says. “A good rule of thumb is about 20 percent of kids in schools today need emotional support and mental-health services. We’re able to get a portion of those, but not all.”
The dinner and auction is intended to help bridge that gap. RAYS hopes to raise $35,000 at the event, which will feature dinner, a band, a live and silent auction and artwork and demonstrations from Renton artists.
RAYS staff is hoping enough money is raised to help more people like Carolina Perez, who Crump says has become a leader in her Rites of Passage group.
“When she talks now, they listen,” he says. “They hear how, well she started out here, now she’s here. She’s becoming a mentor herself, and that’s what the program is all about — turning kids into mentors, or peer leaders.”
RAYS auction
• Tickets are still available for the annual RAYS (Renton Youth and Family Services) “Signature Showcase” Dinner and Auction at Renton Technical College May 31.
The silent auction begins at 5:30 p.m. A prime rib buffet will be served at 7 p.m., and the live auction begins at 8 p.m. Tickets are $50 per person and $400 for a table of eight. For more information or tickets, visit www.rays.org, or contact Carol Sanford, 425-271-5600, ext. 21, or carols@rays.org.
• Susan Richards will receive the RAYS4Hope Award at the May 31 dinner and auction. Richards is executive director of Communities In Schools of Renton. The award is in recognition of Richards’ contributions to the welfare of children, youth, and families.
