Success Stories

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Avery had just moved to Hillsboro from another district following her parents’ divorce. She was suffering from depression and anxiety and was having a hard time making connections in middle school. But she loved writing stories. When I introduced the Graphic Novel unit to the class, I saw a rare smile. She began to write. And she continued writing. After 18 pages, she began to draw. Every day working on the graphic novel, I saw her love for writing, drawing, and school in general increase. Her intermittent attendance improved and she was often the first one to class, working before the tardy bell even rang. Phone calls started coming from home. “Something’s different,” mom would say. “My daughter wants to come to school. She’s doing homework. She’s working for hours. What did you do?” One last phone call from mom: “Avery has decided that she’d like to be an author. She wants to publish her work.” Avery had a goal now; a direction. A purpose.

Avery went on to present her graphic novel at Evergreen Middle School’s Comicon (Comic Convention) where professional artists and authors reviewed her work and remarked on Avery’s immense potential.

Evergreen Comicon was a game changer for Avery.

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Nicole Chronister knew that Sara’s life wasn’t fair. She was dealing with life and family circumstances that no one should have to face in a lifetime, let alone at age 11. To make matters worse, the Tobias Elementary teacher didn’t know if her Girl’s Engineering After School Club was making an impact on her student. Sara, unlike the other curious and engaged girls, seemed unimpressed and aloof during the engineering projects that were introduced every week…more interested in her smart phone than building hydro lifts.

But Nicole learned the truth on parent day, the last day of the 8-week series when all the students presented their final projects. A shy humble man approached the teacher slowly. He introduced himself as Sara’s grandfather and thanked the teacher. He shared that his granddaughter rarely talked at home, rarely seemed happy, rarely seemed interested in anything but her phone…except on Monday nights after the Girl’s Engineering Club. On these nights, Sara came home full of excitement and ideas….happy. Sara insisted that she and her grandfather build a shelf together to display her club projects and built a movie projector completely on her own.

This engineering club was a game changer for Sara and her grandfather.