Giving Back: Reader’s Choice

For Lisa Greene, a guidance counselor at Eastside High School, bridges don’t just link shorelines, they change lives. She’s talking about Furman’s Bridges to a Brighter Future program and how “it closes the university’s gap of encouragement and academics for students who are motivated, without support, and whose needs may not be addressed by the classroom setting.” Greene said she was moved to tears recently listening to stories told by former students of the program. One young man had scars from when he got shot—at six years old. Another young woman had raised herself. Each was now on his or her way to a better life through education.

Since its inception more than a decade ago, this pre-college academic enrichment program has helped hundreds of Greenville County students living in seriously challenging circumstances to successfully graduate from high school and enroll in college. And it does so in more ways than just offering a kind word or praise for a good grade.

According to current Furman student Sebastian Barbosa, the Bridges program offered him a family and friends, as well as a future. An accomplished classical guitarist, Barbosa arrived in the States in 2004. He says he was shy and withdrawn because he didn’t speak English well, but after just one month with Bridges, “I had grown both socially and in my language skills.”

Hilary Rampey, a Woodmont High alum also enrolled at Furman, doesn’t know where she would have ended up without Bridges. She admits, “My sister dropped out of high school, and I looked up to her. I might have gone to college, but not someplace as great as Furman.”

Barbosa and Rampey extol the virtues of being in such an intensive environment, especially during the month-long summer course when they lived on campus and took classes from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Rampey says her old friends couldn’t understand how much the rigorous schedule changed her in one month. “The academic aspect is a tangible measure of your improvement. When you see it, you start believing in it and yourself,” she says. But the friendships forged were just as important as improving a GPA. “If you have hard times, you can call someone from the program, and they would be there for you.”

Program director Tobi Swartz chimes in to assert that this indeed is the heart of Bridges’ success. “There are a lot of similar programs in the U.S. but few that have the outcomes we have because of the experience we create. We set high expectations for the students because not many people have that in their lives.”