Leslie Howell, a high school dropout, earned her GED in April and has enrolled for the fall in the Hotel and Restaurant Management program at SCC. Funding for the successful GED program at Jackson County Family Resource Center, which has helped others like Howell for the past eight years, runs out the end of June. Anyone who has ideas on how the program can be continued is asked to contact Joan Moulton, director of basic skills at SCC, at 586-4091, ext. 361.

When Howell was 25, she came back to school.

"I came back because of my two children,” she said. "And I needed to complete something in my life.”

This was in February. By April, she had earned her GED. Already, she has enrolled for the fall in the Hotel and Restaurant Management program at Southwestern Community College. And now the future is wide open for her.

Howell is a single mother of two boys, aged 2 and 4. She took advantage of a GED program that SCC has had in place since 1999 at the Jackson County Family Resource Center. Two nights a week, the center has provided a meal and babysitting for students like Howell whose family duties make it difficult to attend school.

Dozens of students, many of them single mothers, have earned their GEDs through the program. And since 1999, SCC has added Beginning Reading and English as a Second Language to the mix.

But the clock is ticking, and by June’s end, FRC funding for the program will have run out. SCC is looking for another source of funds or another location for students like Howell who are juggling work, home and school.

Joan Moulton, director of Basic Skills at SCC, said the program has proven its value in the eight years it has been in existence. Anyone who has ideas on how the program can be continued should call her at SCC at 586-4091, ext. 361.

Classes are held at the FRC on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and mealtime – from 5:30 to 6:00 p.m. – finds the center buzzing with parents and kids all eating and talking together. At 6, the children leave with the babysitters, and the parents go to their study areas.

Howell has a day job as a server at Nick & Nate’s, so she couldn’t go to school during the day.

Night school was the key. So, did she find the FRC program helpful?

"Two nights a week not having to go home to cook,” she laughed. “Are you kidding me?”
Other students at the FRC and her teacher, Jay Ward, were an important part of her support network, people who encouraged her in her return to education. Others in that group were her parents and stepmother, her supervisor at Nick & Nate’s and the father of her boys. She has two sons, Spencer and Logan Evans.

"Spencer (the 4-year-old) was very supportive,” she said. “He would always ask, ‘Are we going to school?’ If I said no, he would say, ‘Please, please …’ He liked it. He kept me going.”
She has worked at Nick & Nate’s for three years. Jennifer Ewart, one of the owners, was the supervisor who kept encouraging her. It was her work at this downtown Sylva pizza restaurant that got Howell interested in the hospitality industry and why she chose SCC’s Hotel and Restaurant Management program.

Ewart said Howell is very enthusiastic, gets to work early and gives it her best every day. She thinks Howell will be successful in anything she tries.

If Howell didn’t have that same confidence in herself before earning her GED, she does now.
"I feel like I’ve finally completed something in my life … made a milestone,” she said. “I feel confident and ready to go on to bigger and better things.”

Moulton said that Howell serves as a good example of the kind of student the FRC program has helped over the years, and that the loss of the program would truly be missed.

"It’s important that we find another way to provide both a meal and babysitting for parents who can then devote their evening to study for their GED,” Moulton said. “Perhaps a church or some other community organization can step in. Please call me (586-4091, Ext. 361) with any ideas you might have.”

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