BREAKTHROUGH SPOTLIGHT
become what I really want to be when I grow up. Now I have a career in mind that I’m hoping to get to.
MO: I just don’t know where I would be. I wouldn’t be as into school as I am today. I wouldn’t know as much as I know today. I would just be with my friends… failing. Breakthrough helped me a lot to make sure that I didn’t fail.
RA: When I first heard that Breakthrough was coming to my school, I just though “Oh, I guess I will just sit down and listen to what these people are saying. And it’s not going to be really interesting.” But at the end I was thinking this would be really good for me; maybe I should try it.
MO: And yes, it was free. That’s what caught me. That’s when I said, “Alright here I come!”
CZ: To me, when people give to Breakthrough, it means that the other kids who will come to Breakthrough will get better opportunities and better chances. Even though I did get pretty good opportunities, they could still maybe be better and maybe the best that they could get.
RA: Education can get you really far in life and really give you what you want.
MO: Friends come and go but an edu‑ cation is what is truly important.
www.breakthroughmanchester.org
Erin Ferguson ’10 works with students on a Super Saturday.
CZ: Breakthrough Manchester is in its twentieth year. And it has helped hun‑ dreds of students to get on the right path to college. That’s what really got me excited. I thought, “Yeah, I really want to do this.” Now that I have gone through the program I am really glad that I did it. I learned so much. Even though I was already motivated, I wanted to be more. I wanted to be better.
Local Honors Breakthrough Manchester was hon‑ ored as the Manchester Community College President’s Community Partner Award recipient at the Campus Compact for New Hampshire Presidents’ Awards Luncheon on April 13. The award was given to Breakthrough for “Enhancing the qual‑ ity of life in the community in mean‑ ingful and measurable ways and engaging in the development of sus‑ tained, reciprocal partnerships with a college or university.”
The Eighth Grade Super Saturday Program, led by Derryfield’s Katherine Grisanzio ’10, Philip Melanson ’10, Catalina Benech ’11, and Aseeb Niazi ’11, collaborated with student leaders at Manchester Community College to design a workshop entitled “Lessons in Leadership.” The partnership allowed the MCC students to practice their skills as leadership coaches to help meet the needs of the eighth grade Breakthrough students who were developing their own leadership skills and, in turn, passed leadership skills onto sixth and seventh graders through a series of workshops and activities at the final Super Saturday in May.
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