PROJECT SUCCESS

Alisha Knutson, 14, has had a civic awakening in the past year. By her own admission she’s gone from a girl who thought the world took care of itself to a young woman ready to help her school, her community and even the world.

“This year I’ve learned a lot about this stuff,” Knutsen said. “In the past, I would have just let some other people do it, but not now.”

Now, Knutson presses her own family into litter pickup in their neighborhood. She volunteers at the local animal shelter and even raises money for a hospital in a Third World country. The catalyst for her change has been the Road to Success Program at Mountain View Middle School in east Spokane Valley. The program takes the schools’ most disengaged students, ones struggling academically, emotionally or socially, and involves them in the world like they’ve never been before.

“We do stuff like projects for our school, and I think our city,” said Chris Allmand, a seventh-grader in his first year with Road to Success. “I wasn’t really getting good grades last year, so they just kind of put me in here. Basically, we help people. Mrs. Williams lets us work on other stuff if we need to get caught up with our homework. I’m doing better now.”

The projects keep the students giving back to their world almost nonstop from September through June. Along the way, they’re given a full dose of responsibility and held accountable for getting their grades up. Ideally, Road to Success kids realize that their position in the world, as contributors, is strengthened by good grades and participation.

“These students have so many positive qualities, I feel privileged to work with them on a daily basis,” said Marcy Williams, Road to Success teacher.

Williams’ charges begin the school year with the steep challenge of collecting $500 in pennies for a hospital in Nalta, Bangladesh. The teacher and students chose the Nalta hospital two years ago after learning from counselor Carla Bagby about problems there. Bagby’s father-in-law, George Bagby, a Spokane orthopedic surgeon, started the Nalta hospital, which serves a community of 1.8 million people. Over the years, Spokane service groups like the Lions Club and Road to Success have raised $100,000 for the hospital.

Corresponding with the students, George Bagby told the class their $500 translated into $32,875 in Bangladesh money. After the first year of the penny drive, Nalta hospital patients wrote letters thanking the Mountain View students for giving the community enough money to buy artificial limbs. Amputations are commonplace in Nalta where congested streets and unsafe working conditions are frequent causes of serious injury. Antibiotics needed to ward off infection are often in short supply or nonexistent, which makes amputation needed to save a person’s life.

“It’s just a really, really, really poor country, and we gave them money for supplies,” said Knutsen.

As she explains her new understanding of a world in need, Knutson comforts a young, female bull terrier inside a chain-link pen at the Spokane County Regional Animal Protection Service, or SCRAPS. The animal shelter is just a few miles from Mountain View Middle School campus.

Road to Success students volunteer at the shelter for a couple hours every month as part of their regular school day. They give the animals needed attention, but in the process, they also pay less attention to their own issues, said Williams. There’s a real effort to keep the students’ focus away from themselves and on the community.

In the fall, the students give up a weekend to volunteer at the Spokane Valley Valleyfest fun run and pancake breakfast. At, Christmas the students help out with the Vanessa Behan Crisis Nursery’s Santa Express store for kids. In doing so, Road to Success students help children not much younger than they. The Santa Express is a makeshift store set up just west of Macy’s on the skywalk level at the Valley Mall. Children between the ages of 4 and 12 peruse the store for gifts priced between 50 cents and $8 for family members. The proceeds from the Santa Express store are given to the Crisis Nursery. The nursery is a nonprofit organization providing shelter to children at risk of abuse and neglect.

At school, Road to Success students monitor indoor air quality and work with the Spokane County Air Pollution Control Authority on the “no-idle zone” project, an effort to cut down on diesel exhaust emitted from idling busses outside public schools.

The group has twice earned a Jim Chase Youth Award, picking up the leadership award for middle school students this year and the Spirit of Jim Chase Award in 2005. The awards are given to students who commit generous, selfless and even courageous acts.

The Road to Success, said Williams, is just the beginning of a journey the students will hopefully continue into high school.