Making a Difference in Ridgefield

I’m planning on occasionally highlighting some of the wonderful organizations in this town and I’d like to start with Ridgefield A Better Chance which is near and dear to my heart as we are a host family.

A Better Chance is a national organization that provides students of color with opportunities that they may not otherwise have to study in a rich academic environment – either a public school district, in which case there is an ABC house with an RA – or in a boarding school setting. The students have to be smart, motivated and recommended to the program. Criteria for acceptance to RABC includes: “academic achievement (tests scores and grades), excellent recommendations, demonstrated motivation, leadership skills, independence, readiness to leave home and interests apart from academics. We look for young women who aspire to take an active role at school, in the house and in the greater Ridgefield community.”*

They describe their mission as “to provide academically talented and highly motivated young women of color the opportunity to live in Ridgefield and to study at Ridgefield’s public high school. We provide educational, social, and cultural enrichment as we strive to prepare our Scholars to assume positions of responsibility and leadership in American society.”

The girls are provided with an academic advisor and a host family which whom they spend 1-2 weekends a month. This provides them with a break from the RABC house and a home base and family in town.

Having a host daughter is a wonderful experience and while I’m sure she’s learned a lot from us, we’ve learned just as much from her. It has widened all of our horizons. We’ve also met the other girls in the program and collectively they are an extremely inspiring bunch of young women who will certainly go far.

If you’d like to learn more about this organization, please check out https://ridgefieldabc.org/

*From the RABC website