GAINESVILLE – Students at eight schools in Hall County now have one more avenue of giving back to the community, something founders of Anchor International believe is a “need” the current generation has deep within them.
Anchor International is the youth division of Pilot International, a Macon-based service organization founded in 1921 that is now worldwide.
Leslie Congdon is Court Liaison for the Hall County Special Education Department. She belonged to Anchor Club (AC) when she was a student at North Hall High School. That chapter later disbanded, but Congdon never forgot her AI experience.
About two years ago, according to Congdon, she launched her effort to resurrect AC and joined forces with two other Hall County Special Education Department workers, Scott Crain, Parent Mentor, and Lisa Shows, Autism Facilitator, in a push to bring AC back to Hall County.
She said the impetus for making that move was because another similar program, Partners Club, was about to lose funding. She suggested, “Why don’t we do Anchor Clubs because I use to be an Anchor. We are about friendship and service, and we also do anything that is related to the brain. So it works perfectly with our Rigorous Ed students and with our Special Ed students.”
Congdon said her invitation to all the schools in Hall County to sponsor an AC was initially greeted with mixed reaction, mostly due to concerns over financing and finding teachers able and willing to serve as school coordinators.
That may change after Tuesday morning’s chartering event of Anchor Clubs at eight schools.
284 students from Chestatee High School, Davis Middle School, East Hall High School, East Hall Middle School, Gainesville High School, Johnson High School, North Hall High School and West Hall Middle School filled the meeting room at The Oaks at LCCA for the swearing-in ceremony and the excitement ran high.
Congdon said energetically, “We’re starting with eight. We hope next year to add some more. Some of the schools (may) realize, ‘Oh, we want to do that, too.’”
Congdon invites any parent, student, teacher or administrator interested in learning more about Anchor Clubs and the service projects they undertake to contact her or Scott Crain or Lisa Shows through the Hall County School System website.
In addition, more information can be obtained about serving the community through Pilot International by visiting their Facebook page.
Sherrill Day, President of the Pilot Club of Gainesville, emceed the ceremony and said afterward one of the Gainesville Pilot Club’s most well-received service projects is known as Project Lifesaver.
Project Lifesaver uses technology to assist victims of Alzheimer’s, Down Syndrome, Autism and other similar challenges. Day said her group provides and maintains tracking bracelets wore by their clients that help searchers locate them should they become lost or disoriented.
“Pilot members, we go and change the batteries in these each month,” Day said. “So far they’ve been able to find everybody in less than 30-minutes.”
Day says at present about two dozen people in the area have these tracking devices, but should family members or caregivers like to know more about the program they should contact the Hall County Sheriff’s Office. “We coordinate with them in the 911 Center.”
“We have some extra bracelets right now that we would like to be placing on someone.”
