At Rocky Creek Sporting Clays, Original Six Foundation takes aim at helping students
BY BRIAN GARNER
While Nikki Haley was Governor of South Carolina, she created the Original Six Foundation to provide students in rural counties with the tools they need to succeed in schools. Haley and the Foundation returned to Rocky Creek Sporting Clays in Richburg for the fourth year to raise money for this initiative that seeks to improve and enhance educational opportunities for students in rural counties.
Haley, who is also the former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, was the featured speaker before the day’s Sporting Clay Tournament event.
Before the 200 team members dispersed to one of two sporting clay courses, Haley gave them a brief overview of the Original Six Foundation.
“For many of you who have been here before, you know that the Original Six was a passion of mine…we started the Original Six Foundation my first year as Governor, and the goal was how do we lift up the rural areas of South Carolina? How do we make sure we educate children not based on where they’re born and raised, but based on the fact that they deserve a good education. We have started this program and the whole thought process was: how do we help these children in these poor, poverty stricken areas when they just need that little bit of extra help. Sometimes both of their parents are working, and they get home late and can’t help with homework, who is going to help these kids?”
Haley asked the sporting clay teams, “Now I want you to think about what’s happened recently. You look at the situation of education and look at what’s happened with Covid. We had a problem with education pre-Covid – 65 percent of fourth graders, pre-Covid, were not proficient in reading in this country. Sixty-six percent of eighth graders, pre-Covid, were not proficient in reading or math. Now think about a child during Covid in third grade in rural South Carolina, using a screen they have never used before, working from a hotspot on the school bus down the street. What’s he learning in third grade? Reading, fractions, history? Who is going to tell his parents that they have to hold him back, because we know a child that can’t read by third grade is four times less likely to graduate high school,” Haley said.
“Now I want you to count your blessings today, because you are in a situation that if Covid hit, you could put your child in private school, or if Covid hit, you were there to stay home and help them with their school. Now I want you to put yourself in the situation of a parent that lives in Bamberg: they have to go to work to put food on the table and they leave their child at home, and now they’re in a situation where their child is behind. They need you, because South Carolina’s children are all of our children,” she said.
She urged the team members to think about what that parent in Bamberg is going through.
“We have one job. One job. To make sure our kids are more successful than we are, that they have more opportunities than we do.”
Haley explained the Original Six Foundation has an afterschool program where they deploy certified teachers, and the teachers that teach the kids during the day come in to the afterschool program and help the kids with their homework and help them study for tests, so parents don’t have to worry.
“We’ve watched test grades go up, but more importantly, we’ve watched the confidence of these kids go up,” she said.
Haley asked the crowd to remember when they were little and they walked into a classroom and weren’t ready for a test or they didn’t have their homework, and asked them to remember how scared they felt.
“That’s how those kids felt every day. What we’re doing is we’re giving them hope and we’re giving them confidence, and we’re letting them know they deserve better,” she said.
The Original Six Foundation has supported 17,000 children and helped 20 different school districts across the state and started the My First Library initiative where they give 10 books to start their reading education before kindergarten. The Original Six Foundation has established My First Libraries for over 4,00 children, Haley reported.
“We are doing things to lift that kid, so by you being here, you are doing things for people you will never meet. Let me tell you how those parents feel: The idea that you are helping them; you will never know how much they appreciate you, because you will never meet them. But the way you make them feel when you help their children, is priceless,” Haley said.
To help raise money for the Foundation, the shooters at Rocky Creek Sporting Clays participated in a silent and live auction and had to the chance to buy some sporting clays that Haley had autographed.