North Palm Beach – In July, the ARISE Foundation was accepted into the 2008 Combined Federal Campaign. The Campaign, part of Child Aid International, will kick off September 1st and run through December 15th. Local administrators will hand out almost four million 100-page directories of eligible charities, along with pledge cards, to all federal employees. The employees will then be invited to pick five charities and specify how much money they wish to donate to each one.
Susan and Edmund Benson and their staff have spent the last 20 years working tirelessly to train Juvenile Justice Officers how to teach vital life skills to the at-risk youth under their care. Based in North Palm Beach, Florida, ARISE programs have been used successfully throughout Florida and in over 100 Washington D.C. schools, organizations and secure facilities. The programs have also gone international, with ARISE Life Skills Training being translated and utilized successfully in Mexico, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Bosnia, Central Asia, England, New Zealand, Australia and others. The innovative training opens the pathways of communication, builds trust and forms a mentoring relationship between juvenile offenders and their caretakers. Very often, at-risk youth have been let down by at least one adult in their life. The dynamic ARISE programs form bonds between at-risk youth and the adult staff members they interact with every day.
Learning short, simple lessons in an open, nonjudgmental environment allows the kids to be more receptive to the important life skills the Juvenile Officers look to teach them. The ARISE curricula is designed for youth who have difficulty with reading and writing. The simplistic nature of the lessons prevents learning-disabled youth from getting discouraged and angry because they don’t understand the material. Just a sampling of the life skills taught by ARISE Trainers are anger management, conflict resolution, health and hygiene, AIDS awareness, teen pregnancy prevention, how to network and interview for a job, how to purchase and maintain a car and much more. Each course involves participation from each learner, getting everyone involved and making the process fun and exciting.
The ARISE team has trained and certified over 5,000 instructors who have taught almost 4,000,000 documented hours of ARISE life skills lessons in Florida alone. This is the first time ARISE has earned the honor of being included in the Combined Federal Campaign. The CFC is the world's largest and most successful annual workplace charity campaign, raising millions of dollars each year. Pledges made by donors during the campaign season support nonprofit organizations that provide health and human service benefits throughout the world. Last year, federal employees pledged over $270 million to charitable causes through the campaign.
The ARISE Foundation hopes to make federal employees aware of their five-digit CFC Code (12303) and direct traffic to its website at http://www.ariselife-
