Take Charge America Supports Rodel Community Scholars with $5,000 Donation
Funding of Program Helps ASU Business Students Tackle School Dropout Rates
PHOENIX, Ariz. (May 27, 2004) – Mike Hall, president and founder of Take Charge America, Inc. (TCA), is pleased to announce that the non-profit credit counseling and debt management organization has donated $5,000 to the Rodel Community Scholars Program, established by a partnership between the Rodel Foundation and Arizona State University’s W.P. Carey School of Business. The donation will be used to support the Rodel Scholars’ research regarding the state’s high school dropout rate.
According to Hall the project is a perfect extension of TCA’s mission. “We are in the business of empowering people and enhancing the financial literacy of all Americans,” he said. “As a community, if the Scholars can learn more about why high school students drop out of school before graduation, perhaps we can find a way to entice them to stay and help them avoid common mistakes that can have a significant long term financial impact on their lives. If we can do that, we can help reduce unemployment, welfare, crime and other social issues that affect us all. There is nothing more worthwhile.”
The Rodel Community Scholars program allows ASU business honors program students to utilize their critical thinking skills, putting them to work on one of the Valley’s most challenging issues, such as the high school dropout rate. Students will be asked to approach it as a business opportunity, not a social problem, and together with their high school partners they will search for the strategy that best addresses the problem in their target school. Specifically, they will address their targeted school's dropout rate - gathering data, interviewing students to better understand their "customers," developing strategies for student retention that reflect the needs of the customers, setting performance goals, and writing an implementation plan.
For additional information, please contact Brennan Forss at Rodel Community Scholars Program (480)727.6622 or rodel@asu.edu.
About Take Charge America
Founded in 1987, Take Charge America, Inc. (TCA) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) charitable organization headquartered in Phoenix, AZ. TCA is committed to helping consumers gain control of their finances and offers a variety of services including education, budget and financial counseling, and when necessary, debt management.
TCA also serves as an effective resource for the business community. We help financially distressed consumers re-organize their finances and return hundreds of millions of dollars annually to financial institutions, professional service providers, and businesses of all sizes and descriptions that may otherwise have been lost to the economy in bankruptcy. TCA’s diversified programs are utilized by tens of thousands of families and single men and women throughout the United States each year.