Have you ever said, I wish they taught this in school? Balancing a checkbook, budgeting, car maintenance, home repairs, or learning how to develop a career? In Anderson County, community leaders are teaching life skills and offering free night classes to students ages 14 to 30.
The program is called Empowerment or E3. “E” stands for educate, equip, and encourage. A 20-member advisory board made up of teachers, business and community leaders, and students oversee the monthly classes at Anderson County High School. Natalie Frasure, a teacher with 28 years of experience, volunteered to teach a class on career development like one she leads in high school.
“I teach a program called Jag, Jobs for America's Graduates, and I teach career skills, life skills, career development. We do civic awareness, we do social awareness, and that's what I wanted to transfer to this program as well to the E3 program.”
Frasure says the idea for the Empowerment classes started with Donna Crain Drury of Lawrenceburg.
"Her granddaughter, when she was in high school, was like, I feel like there's a lot of skills that I'm missing and that I'm not getting in the regular classroom, because there's so much academics that I need to learn. And so the two of them kind of came up with the idea, and then Donna and I spoke about it, and my husband and I have had similar ideas, like we want to teach kids how to change a tire, how to change a light bulb, how to change out like an outlet in in their home, and things like, when do you change your air filters? There are things like this that a lot of kids just are missing those skills. And so that's how this was kind of born from that.”
Other community members stepped up to teach life skills, like Jimmy Robinson, Deputy Fire Chief in Anderson County. His class is vehicle maintenance.
“It’s basically from how to change the tire if they’re broke down on the side of the road. What's the importance of maintaining your vehicle so it'll last you a long time, oil changes, all that, anything that you can basically do at home without having to get into major repairs.”
Robinson says he grew up learning those skills at home.
“I grew up on a farm, you know, so we didn't have money to go fix our own stuff, so you just learn to tinker with stuff and fix it. And kids don't have that now.”
For Shawna Stratton, parent of an E3 student, the life skills classes are a tremendous opportunity.
“I think that it was like almost an answered prayer. As a parent, I want to give him all of the resources that I can to make him a successful human and sometimes when you're a parent, what you say isn't as valuable to your child as if they hear it from other people. I can sometimes tell him how to finance, or how to budget or how to apply for a job interview, or how to look nice for those things. But I feel like sometimes when he hears it from other professionals or from someone, he respects that works in a different field, that sometimes it settles more with them.”
High school freshman Alex Small sees the benefits of learning about managing money.
“I'm in budgeting. We've gone over a couple things like the 50,30, 20 rule, 50% needs, 30 for wants, and 20 savings. We've covered the different types of banking and accounts, and we covered mortgages."
She also likes the idea of learning about vehicle maintenance.
“I live out on a farm, and I've been learning to drive pretty much since I was 10. And my dad and my chief, which is my grandfather, they want me to know how to drive and work on some of the vehicles that are on the farm, so that class interests me.”
Leaders of Empowerment plan to offer more life skill classes in the future.
Frasure says, “Every time we mention it to somebody, they are on board. They want to help. The problem we're having now is just getting the word out and making sure that the community knows what we offer and how we can help.”
If you’d like to get involved with Empowerment in Anderson County check out https://e3empowermentprogram.weebly.com/
