CITY program needs community support

By Staff
The CITY Program will lose three staff members as a result of budget cuts from the Educational Trust Fund.
Program Director Ramona Roberson said losing these three staff members would hinder the program's availability to serve the students and their family.
The program needs $145,000 in order to keep these positions at the center. Since the program opened in Franklin County in 1999, more than 300 students and their families have been served as an alternative to other disciplinary action taken by the juvenile justice system.
This center is dedicated to helping at-risk youth, and should be kept in currently working condition. To cut resources on such a valuable program would only short change our youth and give them less alternatives.
The state-level juvenile justice system says that community based at-risk programs are what's best for our youths, yet funding for these programs were cut anyway.
It's important that we all stand together to protect this program in our county because for every child it changes is one less child we have to worry about in the adult justice system some day.
We hope that the community will work together to protect this local resource for our at-risk youth.