Good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome, and it's time now for our community connection right here on gay one, Well one, you trust, Hi? How you doing there? We have Brienna in here with us and she's an executive director with the Young Scholars of Bartelesville. And we changed the name, but it's still the same same. Tell us a little bit about Young Scholars of Bartleshill first of all, because
we've got a big event we're going to talk about here. Yes, yes, so, Young Scholars of Bartlesville is an organization that focuses on helping students who are at the free reduced rate. So you're economically a little challenged whose parents are working for right. You know, we've got jobs, we're working, but it's hard to get things paid. So we are looking for students who need help paying for college, and so we also provide other opportunit unities
for them, work opportunities. We teach a bunch of life skills so that they are able to go off to college and be successful. We have a ninety seventy three percent rate of graduation versus the twenty percent average college graduation rate. Holy so yes, yes, our program works really well. And so we have a lot of great things going on. Obviously being a nonprofit, we are looking for donors, We're looking for mentors, we also look for
students. So there's lots of ways you can help if you're interested. How'd we get ahold of you giving me a phone call at nine one eight seven six six six six seven five or we just went live with our website, yay. Our website is Bartosville Youngscholars dot org and so we are looking forward to being able to show off our new website. We would love you to check it out. Definitely want feedback from you. Man, this is great. Now, what we've got coming up is something that's going to move you,
It really is. So I want everybody to carve out a special little time on Saturday, January sixth, and it's going to be at the library, right, that's correct. Now, when you were talking to me about this author, you mentioned his name and I started going okay, oh, and then about three minutes later he clicked, I know who Alton Carter is. Oh you do interesting and so yeah, So there's this thing called YouTube, yes, yes, and you can find him on there, Yes you
can. And then tell us about Alton and his powerful story. Alton started off life as one of five children to a father who took off and didn't return an abusive mother. At the age of eight, he and his siblings were removed from the home and put into foster care. Well, no, I'm sorry. They were put in with the grandmother and the uncles. And they didn't leave one situation for a better one. He just went from one abusive situation to the next. And finally he was removed from that home and
sent to a boy's ranch. And during his time at the boy's ranch, there was an abusive counselor. Yes, yeah, yeah, we'll call it the counselor. And so life just didn't quite get better. And the book is called The Boy who Carried Bricks, and that's because one of the punishments on this farm, this boy's farm in Perkins, Oklahoma, was that they would have to take five bricks and carry a certain distance down the road as punishment, set him down and go back and they would have to do those
for hours on end. So life didn't get better. He ended up leaving the boys home. Unfortunately, he was placed, which you know, somebody was willing to foster him. It happened to be the bad counselor who had gotten fired from there. Had filed to be a foster parent, and as luck would have it, he turned out to be the person that he would go live with, and he lived there for about six months so until he finally ran away. He had a really rough upbringing, but he was determined
he was going to change his life. He was the first one in all of his family to ever graduate high school. He jumped about seventeen foster homes just after that one bad foster home, and so he had a really rough upbringing. But he stated that you know, carrying the bricks. We all have bricks we have to carry in life. Load. Yeah, there's a load that has to be carried, and that sometimes we have to let that load go or set it down. And so he has had an extraordinary life.
He went on to get a college degree, he became a sheriff, and he has been a youth pastor in Stillwater for many many years. He has such an incredible story and such a wonderful outlook about how no matter what adversity you face, you have the ability to overcome it. And so we would love for you guys to come out and hear his story, his books. The tickets are going to be on sale for twenty dollars to be able to come hear him. But if you pay twenty nine then you get his
book at cost. He's willing to do that for anybody that wants to come hear him. You don't have to pay the full book price. You just pay at cost. And so twenty nine dollars. And you're going to be helping me get this on a website, yes, will, Yeah, we do that. We will have the story out this afternoon, okay. And you're going to see a little bit of Alton, and you're going to see a whole lot of the information what you're going to need in order to be
a part of this. And once again, the entrance is twenty dollars. Twenty dollars if you want the book, and I strongly suggest you walk out of there with the book because it's only going to be at cost. You won't get it any paper. It's only twenty nine dollars, that's right. So they're all totaled. And this is going to be a nice fundraiser for
the young scholars of Bartlesvild. But you're also going to walk away inspired and a lot more understanding and a lot more willing to understand that the world that maybe we grew up in isn't everybody's world, right, and it's got lessons that you can teach your you know, your nieces and your nephews and your grandchildren or your child and yourself. Yeah, there's a lot that can be
learned from this. I have had the pleasure of getting to hear him speak prior, which is why I knew I needed to get him to come to Bartlesville. You know, he's an Oklahoma author, but it is. His story is absolutely amazing and I look forward to getting to see you guys. I'm hoping that we can get you guys in the door. Oh, this will be great. This will absolutely be awesome. And like I said,
you you'll come out of change person a bit. You know, you're gonna you're gonna have your eyes opened a little and your heart's gonna open a whole lot more. And that that's what I like about his delivery and the way he speaks to an audience. He doesn't talk at them, he speaks with them. Yes. And also his book is an awesome piece. You just really need it. In your library, and he needed to be out,
maybe on that coffee table. So when the youngsters come by, say take a look at that, and and you know, good things can start happening. You know, we all have detours and road stops in our life. His you would have thought, oh, hopeless case. And for some of us we think, well, tough luck means, oh, well, jeez, the prices are a little too high Christmas. We're going to have to
cut back a little bit. Oh wooh, boo hoo, tri carryon bricks like this kid had, yes for miles and miles and jumping seventeen foster homes. That was more than seventeen, Yes, that was seventeen. Just after he had gone to live with this mentioned the bay the bad guy, and yes, unfortunately that he's that's adversity of it. That is adversity, and you know, breaking the odds and moving along no matter what bricks were laid in front of him getting And it's a great metaphor, it truly is.
So once again, this is the young scholars of Bartlesville. We had the name with the Low family at first, so in case some folks are kind of thinking, I think I know what the yes, we were prior to low family young scholars. Now we're in the rebrand to make it easier to understand he is, and it is easier to it rolls off the tongue a little easier, yes, and it's easier to put together, and it tells us exactly what we're doing and how we do it, and how are you
doing on mentors? Right now we are trucking along, but we could definitely still use some mentors. We were so excited we were able to let in fourteen new students into our programs. So we upped our students from nine to fourteen. So obviously do the math, that's twenty three twenty three students. I believe we are still in need of two male mentors and then I want
to say seven female mentors. So if you are interested in becoming a mentor and having a place in your heart for somebody that you know needs needs it, needs it, Yeah, you know, because sometimes kids come from these situations and you know, they have to face adversity and they need somebody standing in their corner, just like he had found along the way, which is
part of his story, somebody to help guide him. And that is something that we are hoping you find in your heart that you could mentor, which you know doesn't may seem scarier unknown, but you know it's a different story, you know, meeting with your mentor mentee two times a month to go do something fun and build a strong relationship, just so that they have somebody that loves them and trusts them, you know, and a lot of our kids, we are very fortunate we have. They come from amazing homes.
This is not quite our situation, but they need the extra love and support, and you know, the numbers speak for themselves. They say it works. You know, we're talking scholars here. Many of these kids are in kind of Alton's arena there and many times their parents or even their grandparents have never gone to college. With our mentors, they kind of give them a
little bit of a shaping as to what that's going to look like. And you know, if you're someone who's says, yeah, well, look I gotta I have great grades and I have the potential to do things, but I'm a little afraid because I don't know what that college looks like. I don't know what that entails, and that's kind of a scary jump. I don't know how to do that. And you can read up all you want,
you still won't know how to do that. Having one of these mentors in your corner, I can keep you on the tracks, keep you guided, and keep you focused. Yes, mainly keep you focused. There's a lot of diversions out there, but they can give you the picture of what that's going to look like and really kind of set your expectations. And there's so much you can learn from these kids. I mean, they give back to you just as much as you give to them. So you know,
it is a truly a maze kind of dynamics to see played together. You give them the benefit of your wisdom and they open your eyes to a world that's out there that maybe you forgot about. Yes, absolutely, so you learn too. Yes, I love that, Brianna. Thank you very much for being with us today. Thank you so much for having us on. Don't wait so long the next time. Okay, I know, I know it's been big. It has been really hecktic my first year as executive director,
so but I'm loving it. It's been a great journey and I appreciate everybody who's out there willing to help our organization succeed. And be able to keep helping these students. So thank you so much. Well, thank you very much, and once again, the big event is Saturday, January sixth at the library. It's the upstairs Room A and it's a two to four and you can get tickets to see author Altren Carter, The Boy who Carried Bricks and Ching out a true story and he's also a law enforcement man,
analogy, a youth pastor. You can get your tickets at nine one eight seven sixty six sixty six seven five and I'll put the website up there. On the our website, we'll give you the link there for tickets as well a little bit later today. Entry is twenty dollars and if you want to enter for twenty dollars you can, But if you want to leave with a book, it's just a scant nine dollars more. It's all well worth it. Thank you for being with Thank you everybody. Merry Christmas and to you