Project Activate is scheduled to conclude today. We hope that date marks the end of its current funding source, not the end of the work the program has provided to Sampson County Schools.
Over its existence, Project Activate has been about identifying needs among students, educators and the greater school community and finding resources to help meet them. Its efforts have touched mental health, school safety, training, community outreach and opportunities that expose students to experiences beyond the traditional classroom. That kind of work matters.
Friday offered one more example when Project Activate brought 19-year-old violinist and former “America’s Got Talent” contestant Tyler Butler-Figueroa to students in the Union district. His performance was entertaining, but his story of overcoming childhood cancer, bullying and isolation offered students something more.
But that concert was only one small piece of a much larger Project Activate story.
Union Middle Principal Dr. Robbin Cooper described the program as a resource that has helped schools meet the academic, emotional and social needs of students.
“The things that Ms. (Andrea) Rouse is doing in her program, and has done in the past three years since I’ve been back in Sampson County, has always been student-centered and student-focused,” Cooper explained, “and has always been geared to making sure that we uplift our students and meet them where they are, and get them what they need when they need it.”
Those are important words: Get them what they need when they need it.
Project Activate has worked to strengthen mental-health awareness and resources, provide training to those who work with young people and support efforts aimed at making schools safer. It has also created opportunities for students who might otherwise never have access to them.
That work should not simply disappear because a grant expires.
We understand that grant-funded programs are never guaranteed to last forever. School systems face limited budgets and seemingly unlimited needs, and local taxpayers cannot be expected to absorb every expense when outside funding ends. But when grant dollars create something that proves valuable, every reasonable effort should be made to determine whether that work can be sustained.
Project Activate coordinator Andrea Rouse is already searching for additional funding. The Sampson County Board of Education has provided Rouse and one staff member with one-month contracts for October as efforts continue to secure money for the program’s future.
That additional month should be used wisely.
Grants, partnerships, local allocations and other available funding sources should all be explored. Project Activate may ultimately have to change in size, structure or even name depending on what funding becomes available.
What should not be lost is the work.
Programs that address students’ emotional and social well-being, provide educators with additional resources and training, strengthen school safety and expose children to new opportunities are not frivolous extras.
They are investments in our young people.
Rouse remains optimistic that funding can be found to continue that mission, and Cooper expressed hope that Project Activate — or something carrying forward the same purpose — will survive.
We share that hope.
Project Activate has spent years building relationships, providing resources and responding to needs throughout the school system. Allowing that momentum to disappear only creates the possibility that someone will have to rebuild it later.
While today may be the sunset date for the grant, it should not have to be the sunset of the good work it made possible.