February is Black History Month, and a program in Appleton has been working for decades to help students.
The organization called Appleton A Better Chance, or Appleton ABC, began in 1968.
"We bring promising students, minority students from other places to go to high school here," said Sheri Fetting, board president of Appleton ABC.
The students live together in a home on Lawrence University's campus and can go to one of the three Appleton public high schools.
"We're part of a national organization, the national A Better Chance organization, which serves to connect these underrepresented promising students with high schools that will prepare them better for college," Fetting said.
The most common reason that students join the program is because their home schools "...are not giving them the opportunities that they need," Fetting said.
"So, coming to our schools here will give them that better chance at succeeding and going on with their lives."
The Appleton chapter has more than 150 alumni, and at least 95 percent of students in the program go onto college, Fetting said.
One alumnus is Patricia Tate's grandson.
"He attended Appleton North for all four years, and in 2004 in his senior year, I moved here from Los Angeles, California to be with him," Tate said.
"It was just a really wonderful experience for all the boys," said Tate, who continues to live in northeast Wisconsin.
"I was grandma to all of them."
A variety of programs are offered to the students, said Garrett Singer, a board member of Appleton ABC and special assistant to the president of Lawrence University.
"Free and paid performances at Lawrence and elsewhere, tutoring support through Lawrence University students, [and] college counseling support with a local independent college counselor" are offered to the students, Singer said.
Tate's grandson went from being a student, to helping students.
"He went back to California, and he finished college there, and he went to the seminary, and so now he is a pastor and he's also in the LA city school district, and he's teaching math," Tate said.
