Testimonials

Strive to Excel helped me to prepare for college. Through the preparation I am able to stay focused on my school work and be proactive with all I have to do. Without the help of Strive to Excel, I feel as if I wouldn’t have been ready for all the things that have happened my first year at college.

Ashley Spaulding
2005 Graduate, Strive to Excel/Hilton Head High School

Strive to Excel provides the support and encouragement students need when it comes time to apply to college and when they start looking for scholarship opportunities. Strive to Excel continuously keeps students motivated and excited throughout the entire college application process. The team does a great job allowing the students to develop autonomy and leadership skills by always offering the perfect amount of guidance and direction. Strive to Excel graduates are sure to soar on any college campus!

Josh Luman
Career Coordinator, Hilton Head High School

As a business woman who’s asked to speak to students in various areas of the country, I find that the Strive to Excel program is an excellent program geared to giving students a hand up in this competitive global economy. Instead of giving the students a “fish” for just today, they are taught to be “fishermen for life.”

Mary Amonitti
Owner, I.I.I. Inc. (PR & Marketing Consultant)

Strive to Excel is reaching students and changing lives. It’s a powerful program that offers the tools and inspiration to succeed. Tim Singleton and his team are an educational success story. They truly show that getting involved in the lives of students has a powerful impact not just today but for years to come.

Bill Miles
President, Hilton Head Island/Bluffton Chamber of Commerce

Strive to Excel is an outstanding program. Tim Singleton and his staff make life changes for students every day. Connecting with kids is an invaluable resource that Strive to Excel provides to our public school students. Helping students to develop social skills, outline plans for college, and implement habits to be successful in their academic careers are all outcomes of the impact this program has on the young people of our community. Hilton Head Middle School is fortunate to offer Strive to Excel to our 8th grade students . . . without it; many would fall through the cracks and be left behind.

Sherry De Simone
Principal, Hilton Head Middle School

H.E. McCracken Middle School has benefited from the Strive to Excel program this year. The program targeted our many times under-served, at-risk 8th graders. The program was a complete success.

Strive to Excel has attempted for several years to serve some of our students. With a new administration, the benefits of this successful model were finally realized. McCracken teachers had heard of the program and enthusiastically endorsed its implementation and referred numerous students to participate. Mr. Singleton would have taken every student referred but, I limited the program to 30. I now know that Mr. Singleton and his staff would have successfully accommodated every student sent their way; there is always next year where I’m assured new students will have the opportunity to experience this program. I see McCracken having a long-term relationship with this outstanding program and each year articulating our 8th graders into Bluffton High School’s Strive to Excel program.

I wish to share an experience that happened recently. . . a student approached me in the hall to show me her report card. The report card had grades all in the nineties. She stated simply, ‘Strive to Excel made this happen.’ I know that she is not the only student feeling that way this semester.

Kathleen Slowiczek Ed.D.
Principal, H.E. McCracken Middle School

Strive to Excel has a strong track record in guiding students through their high school experience. Since 1999, 97 percent of Strive to Excel students have been accepted to postsecondary high education institutions or have joined the military.

Dianne Garnett
President & CEO, Community Foundation of the Lowcountry

Strive to Excel has been so instrumental in my family’s life. It has helped me as a single parent to stay focused on my children’s education, providing me with information I may have not had otherwise been able to research on my own and given financial support that made college tuition attainable. I can say that my daughter, who completed the program, was adequately trained for the SAT and ACT. The weekly progress reports provide me with insight into how my child is doing and gives me the opportunity to step in when necessary. Strive to Excel has always provided me with updates on deadlines for such things as FASFA and other community based scholarships. I don’t believe my daughter would have been exposed to the number of institutions she visited without Strive to Excel; I would never have been able to make the time to take trips. I have recommended this program to all my friends and family with high school students both in Hilton Head and Bluffton. I credit this program for making our transition from high school to college successful.

Paulette Barnwell-Ervin
Parent of a 2004 Strive to Excel Graduate

Strive to Excel’s biggest accomplishment is that it gives that personal touch to guiding both students and parents through the maze of high school. It helps to organize their lives to help lead them to a career and shows the students what they can accomplish. The program really helps to motivate students towards a life and career after high school. The program’s secondary goal is to give students who have been with the program from 9-12th grade the opportunity to earn scholarship funds to help them with their post-high school careers.

Strive to Excel means hope – hope for the student who might be the first in the family to go to college, hope for the shy students that they will gain self confidence.

Dr. Helen Ryan
Principal, Hilton Head High School