Elders push next generation to succeed and provide help through Strive to Excel

Schools get blamed a lot for a lost generation of under-achieving dropouts.

Several elders in our community told me this week it's bigger than that.

Parents need to get more involved in their children's lives, they said. And the children themselves need to try harder.

"You've got to work," an 81-year-old Beaufort man told me. "You don't get something for nothing. It's a struggle to survive and live on whatever it is you have. We knew that, but these young people don't have an understanding."

A 72-year-old man in Chelsea remembered when three adults would whip a child -- for the same offense. His father whipped him for dropping a mullet in the sand.

"If a parent did that today, somebody would call 911," he said.

One of the lights in the wilderness is the Strive to Excel program in local public schools. This is its 10th year, and its primary fundraiser is Saturday on Hilton Head Island.

HawkFest is itself a link to another era, with its watermelon- and pie-eating contests, kids' rides and the school principal in a dunk tank. Hilton Head Island High School varsity athletes will be working booths, and the cheerleaders will perform. So will lots of talented young musicians. It takes place from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Honey Horn.

Artist Addison Palmer, a star Seahawk distance runner in the late 1980s, will be recognized at the 5K race that begins at the school at 8 a.m.

HawkFest can bring multiple generations together to support each other. It shows there are still lots of good kids, despite the depressing education, crime and social statistics.

But it also raises money for the sports teams -- and for Strive to Excel scholarships.

Strive grew out of one of those bigger-than-life stories. An anonymous donor paid for the college education of any student who completed what was then called Project Excel.

Strive gives extra hands-on help to students who otherwise wouldn't live up to their full potential, or who would drop out. It puts them on the path to college and sends them off with scholarship money. The real reward, director Tim Singleton will tell you, is seeing negative kids with low self-esteem and maybe discipline issues transformed into successful adults who are focused and want to succeed.

The program is supported by the community and the schools. It has spread to Bluffton High, Bluffton Middle and Hilton Head Middle, with plans to reach fourth- and fifth-graders soon.

For 10 years, Strive has offered hope to young people -- and the elders who know things need to change.