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Communities In Schools (CIS) is inviting students, parents, and potential mentors to be part of a special event that will have a lasting impact on local students.

Communities in Schools is hosting its inaugural MADE (Motivated, Ambitious, Determined and Empowered) Conference on Saturday, March 1, 2025, from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

Tabitha Lewis-Coverson, Executive Director of Communities In Schools of Georgia in Troup County, said the conference will be like a half-day workshop of the MADE mentoring program they have during the regular school day. She said the conference will open up the program to other kids in need of mentoring.

The conference will have breakout sessions on a variety of topics, including a health and wellness session with Dr. Joy Baker. Tracie Halcrombe will offer information on mental health, and Nicole Todd will do a session on college and career planning.

Lewis-Coverson said LaGrange Councilman Quay Boddie will speak to the whole group to provide a motivational talk about doing what’s right and setting goals.

“It’s just an expansion of our mentoring program, but we’re inviting other kids to kind of be exposed to some of the information that the kids get during the school year, and hopefully, the parents come too because they are signing the kids up,” Lewis-Coverson said. “They’ll get a little bit more information about what Communities In Schools is and some of the resources that are available in the community,”

Under the MADE program, Communities In Schools site coordinators do small mentoring groups where people from the community and community leaders come in and mentor children.

“They do some literacy programs, whatever the students need. They talk about careers. They talk about the older kids. They talk about college,” Lewis-Coverson said. “They have mental health professionals that come in and talk to them about anger management, making good choices, cyberbullying and whatever is going on with the youth of today.”

Lewis-Coverson said a big portion of the mentoring program is teaching kids to lead as well.

“We want kids to go ahead — even as young as our third graders — to go ahead and be thinking about themselves and viewing themselves as leaders now and in the future,” Lewis-Coverson said.

There are currently MADE programs in Franklin Forest Elementary, Clearview Elementary, Callaway Middle, Long Cane Middle and Gardner Newman Middle School, with plans to launch programs at Ethel Kight, Berta Weathersbee and West Point Elementary. Lewis-Coverson said a similar program is also at LaGrange High.

Lewis-Coverson said the conference will be an excellent opportunity for parents to get a good look into the program and see if they want their kids to participate. Similarly, it’s an opportunity for potential mentors to see if they want to get involved.

“We are reaching out to a lot of our corporate partners in the community to get more mentors because parents are asking for their students to be paired with mentors,” Lewis-Coverson said.

Lewis-Coverson said most of their mentoring is in groups, but they started getting requests and have been recruiting individuals in the community to do one-on-one mentoring to students with the greatest needs.

There is always the need for mentoring. Communities In Schools serves well over 3000 kids, and they directly case manage about 900 students.

“There’s a huge need for community involvement and for people to step up and become mentors for these kids,” Lewis-Coverson said.

The MADE Conference will be held at 220 Fort Drive, Building F, in LaGrange. To sign up, visit www.tinyurl.com/CISMADE25.