Albany Back 2 School Bash puts spotlight on education | PHOTO GALLERY

ALBANY — Saturday was a fun-in-the-sun day for children and their parents at Robert Cross Park on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, with an outdoor lunch and opportunities to fish, shoot a few hoops and even go horseback riding.

But the overriding purpose of the event — Back 2 School Bash: A Commitment to Learning — was to provide an incentive for students and their parents to get involved with education.

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“We’re very excited about what will happen today,” Thelma Chunn, chair of the adviser board of the Georgia Civic Awareness Program for Students (GCAPS), which hosted the event, said as it started to get under way. “We know there are serious education concerns in the city of Albany, and one way to address those issues is through education.

“This is to bring parents and students out and help them to continue to understand the importance of education in bettering themselves.”

Chunn said that the food and labor for the Back 2 School Bash were donated by local businesses and volunteers.

Education representatives from Albany State University, Albany Technical College and Darton State College were present at the park to provide printed information on their programs and to answer question from parents and students.

In addition, a late morning “Rap Session with Parents” inside the park Community Center featured comments on success in education from Strive 2 Thrive graduate NaKoasha Dillard; State Rep. Darrel Ealum, D-Albany; Albany Police Chief Michael Persley, and Albany High School senior Brandon Fenn.

Ealum presented a brief overview of Move On When Ready, a collaboration among Dougherty County high schools and higher learning institutions whereby core courses may be completed in grades 9-10, allowing a student to take technical school courses while still attending high school.

Albany’s police chief said education is key to achieving goals.

“Becoming a police officer was a dream I had since childhood,” Persley said. “Then I wanted to be chief. My wife encouraged me to complete the necessary education to achieve my goal, and now I’m here to tell everybody that it doesn’t matter if you’re two, 22 or 102. As long as you have that vision of who and what you want to be, then you can do it.”

And education is a community effort, Fenn said.

“Education is truly a collaborative effort in our community among all the stakeholders,” Fenn said. “That’s parents, teachers, administrators and the community as a whole. For the effort to be succeed, we all have to work together.

“Parents, we need you to make a commitment to education and a commitment to learn so you can be a model for us. Post secondary education is important.”

Following comments from the speakers, the rap session moved to a question-and-answer session and an opportunity for parents to make suggestions and requests to education representatives.

Dougherty County Commissioner John Hayes, who represents District 2, noted the event included bicycle raffles and free school supplies, but added there was more to it.

“But the main focus of the day,” he said, “is to reconnect parents with education and continue to encourage those students already in school to move beyond their high school diploma to a post secondary education.

“In a community such as ours where you have abject poverty and high unemployment, we want to give them hope and convey to the population that there are people who care what happens to them. Providing free food, recreation and information of educational opportunities is one way of doing that.”