A college student, once heading down a dark path, says a special mentoring program changed her course. It’s called Building Dreams. A program of the Institute on Family and Neighborhood Life at Clemson University, Building Dreams provides mentoring services to children who have parents in prison.
The program paired Chardae Anderson with mentor Carol Stewart, a mother of three who was facing empty nest syndrome. Chardae was a troubled teen whose father is in prison. She had been kicked out of middle school and sent to an alternative school before she met Carol when she was 14. Ms. Carol not only listened to and guided her, but she also exposed her to things outside of the world in which she lived. Chardae says, "I just really love that about her, the fact that she wanted to expose me different things and see that there is a world outside of the apartments that I live in, and the neighborhood I live in, and the drugs that I see and the poverty I see. I don't want to grow up in there." Carol says, "I think the only thing that I really did, would be to probably listen. That's really what she wanted.”
Over the years, they would become the best of friends, going to restaurants, hiking, and sharing a love of the outdoors. Along with Chardae’s mom, Chardae says “Ms. Carol” was always her cheerleader and supporter, sitting in the front row, taking pictures of the young woman she considers her fourth child. Chardae would go on to skip her sophomore of high year and become salutatorian of her class. She's now a junior at Clemson University.
Building Dreams is expanding being the Upstate. The organization is in need of mentors for more 100 children in South Carolina.
Building Dreams
Institute on Family & Neighborhood Life
Clemson University
225 S. Pleasantburg Dr.
McAlister Square, Suite B11
Greenville, SC 29607
Phone: (864) 250-4631
Fax: (864) 250-4633
E-mail: mcleigh@clemson.edu
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