As an assistant principal with Wabash City Schools, Jason Callahan recalls sitting and watching parents “who were signing their 16-year-old kids out from school – and how empty that feels. You feel like you just lost this kid for life, and they’re only 16.”
In reality, those students were “lost” years before their official withdrawal from school. Lost because there was no recognition of the power of education or perceived hope for a bright future.
Today, in Wabash County and three other northeastern Indiana locales (and maybe someday throughout the state and beyond) communities are making a “promise” to prevent that from happening.
Why is that promise so important?
“It really is an opportunity for us to tell kids in our community that we care about them, that we care about their education,” says Casey Weimer, CEO of the Cole Family YMCA – the convening agency for the Promise program in Noble and LaGrange counties. “That we don’t want the circumstances that kids have in their lives or where they come from to determine their futures. Dream as big as they want to dream.”
Adds Jill Ostrem, senior vice president of health and well-being at Parkview Health (a financial supporter of the Promise initiative in its four current counties, including Whitley): “It’s been amazing – to make sure kids know anything is possible. Every child’s future should only be determined by their potential.”
Read the rest of the story in BizVoice.
Mike Wells, president of REI Investments in Carmel, is not a man who’s averse to hardware. After all, the Indiana Chamber named him as the 2010 Business Leader of the Year (pictured) at last fall’s Annual Awards Dinner (the 2011 production is 
The inventor of voicemail and (Indiana Chamber member) ChaCha, Scott Jones, has developed a pretty brilliant way to get youngsters involved in entrepreneurship. It’s the same way Jones got involved at age 10 — a lemonade stand. Read below to see how your little ones can get involved in