COBB COUNTY, Ga. — Over the last more than two decades, a metro Atlanta area nonprofit has molded young boys into successful young men.
The Krimson Community Foundation is a local nonprofit that molds and mentors young Black males in grades four through 12. They work with 120 students every school year, teaching them leadership skills, science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) and providing scholarships for college.
Channel 2′s Berndt Petersen was in Marietta, where he got to see what a difference having role models can make as the organization honored its latest graduates.
That all comes along with the help of role models who have been there and done that.
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For Dereck Reed and Kenaniah Turner, they used to believe that in this world, you’re on your own, but now they say they’ve learned about brotherhood.
“There’s nothing more important than having a backbone,” Turner told Channel 2 Action News. “People you can come to whenever you need help.”
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Turner and Reed are both part of the Krimson Community Foundation’s mentorship program. Now in its 25th year, the nonprofit held a graduation ceremony for the latest group of graduates.
“One of the things that young men are lacking is other men in their lives,” Lamont Bates, Foundation Chairman, said. “They can look at these men and see where they can be when they grow up.”
At Sunday night’s Diamond Beautillion ceremony, 19 young men who worked their way through the program got to be in the spotlight and are now looking forward to bright futures.
Turner told Petersen he wants to go to Morehouse College and become a filmmaker while Reed said he planned to go into medicine.
“When I grow up, I want to be a neurosurgeon,” Reed said. “I hope to attend Johns Hopkins University. I know they have one of the top research programs.”
Bates told Channel 2 Action News that some of the mentors at the Krimson Community Foundation are former students of the program.
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