The Future is Bright at Rising STAR

Thanks to our generous donors, the Rising STAR Transition Center has already made an immense impact on the students in their inaugural class. Rising STAR Director, DeLynn Charon, gives us an update:

This year has been quite productive and successful at Rising STAR. All of our students are either working or volunteering in the community. We have students working at Indian Shores RV, Incredible Bank, North Lakeland Elementary School and volunteering at Unwind Spa, Rock of Ages church, The Campanile Center and Scholl Community Impact Center. We have a student who has started his own video transfer business that is starting to take off with customers coming into the transition center to work with him. We are in the process of a second student business where shredding services will be offered. Students have been preparing desserts for Northfork Fin & Filet with one of our teachers three days per week and learning valuable culinary and kitchen skills with this program. We supported one student on the way to earning her drivers license and are assisting with finding affordable community housing for her to gain independence. The work we do at Rising STAR focuses on individual student goals toward living the most independent lives as possible. This includes budgeting, organizing appointments, events, etc...and making contact with outside agencies or higher education via professional emails. In December we held a very successful Cookie Walk and Holiday Fair where student art work and products were made available to the community along with homemade cookies. This was a kick off to selling student products in the community and it was amazing to have the general public in Rising STAR to see our space and celebrate our students. We hope to continue this event next year and also sell products at local farmer's markets and events in the surrounding communities. There is much work to be done while moving our students towards independence and we are all very excited about the success we have started with our first year in this beautiful space. The future is bright for Rising STAR!

Thank you for making Rising STAR possible!