MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Cynthia Handy stands in the corner of a large room at the end of a hallway at Alabama State University with a full box of cherry-flavored Kool-Aid Jammers in her hands. Temporarily suppressing her gentle nature, she forcefully opens the box and sets it down on the table next to three open plastic containers filled with pencils, Crayons, markers, scissors and glue. She then punctures the seal on a 30-count variety box of potato chips before turning her attention to the Powerpoint presentation that an Alabama State student is loading on the computer behind her.
School-aged children file into the classroom, some alone, others in small groups, and make a beeline for the snacks Handy has set out for them. Donning a gray three-button suit, she greets them each by name and asks how their day has been as they enter.
For Handy — the director of ASPIRE, an Alabama State program aimed at preventing dropouts in Montgomery-area schools — so begins another day of fulfilling work. For the students, walking into the classroom marks the beginning of two hours of learning, inspiration and renewed hope for a better tomorrow.
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Before there were Kool-Aid Jammers, students or even a classroom, Handy arrived in Montgomery with nothing but a desire to help. Retired after a 30-year career in education from second grade through high school, she knew she didn’t want to return to the classroom. She did, however, want to make a difference.
“I always wanted to do something to help children,” Handy said. “That’s kind of the only thing I know is helping children.”
Handy moved back to her hometown with her husband, Rev. Cromwell Handy, who had accepted a job as Alabama State’s director of alumni relations. Cynthia Handy immediately
looked for a way to get involved, and her search started and ended at Alabama State, where she obtained her Master’s degree in early elementary education in 1985.
She penned a proposal outlining what she envisioned for a program she called ASPIRE, an acronym for Amazing Students Putting In Resilient Effort, and it landed her the job. But while she had earned the position, Handy began with little in the way of resources or help.
“It was just me in the office, and I had student volunteers. … I wanted something for ASU students to be able to contribute, because I felt like college students, the kids can relate to college students better than they can to me.”
ASPIRE began in the fall of 2010 as a pilot program at Jefferson Davis High School that focused on ninth- and 10th-graders. Handy had 25 students in her first class.
The following summer, Handy decided to expand ASPIRE and add a summer program. Thirty-two children signed up for the first summer, and she called it Head Start Camp, a name that reflected the program’s goal of preparing students eighth grade and up for their upcoming year of high school.
The program now, funded by a federal Title III grant and donations, accepts students as young as fourth grade and has 83 students on the roll. Approximately 50 of them, including an average of 25 per day, attend at least one of the four ASPIRE meetings each week.
From the beginning, Handy has told every student and parent to come through the program one thing: “You only get out of this what you put into it.” And that remains true today.
ASPIRE is not for every student. It is not a rehabilitation program for severely ill-behaved children. Instead, it serves as a daily opportunity for encouragement and mentorship for students with untapped potential who may not receive either elsewhere.
“It’s generally going to be that child that kind of falls in the middle. The one that doesn’t get that much attention or the one that’s really quiet. When they get these mentors, that can kind of wake them up, open (them) up.”
While Handy and the dozens of mentors, all of whom are Alabama State students working on a volunteer basis, play a pivotal role in the day-to-day academic success of the so-called mentees, ASPIRE doesn’t stop there. From the beginning, Handy has sought to use the program as a vehicle to enhance the students’ knowledge of the world around them and the past behind them.
In honor of Black History Month, the students have studied influential figures in black history ranging from Shirley Chisholm to Muhammad Ali to Booker T. Washington to Oprah Winfrey.
Handy has also made field trips a regular part of the learning experience, taking groups of children to the King Center in Atlanta, the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and landmarks in Selma, Tuskegee and even right at home in Montgomery.
“You more you expose, you more you know and the more you want to know,” Handy said. “The more you’re exposed, you more you want to see.”
Over nearly seven years of ASPIRE, Handy estimates approximately 500 children have come through the program. As with all such programs, there have been some failures. But the successes of ASPIRE, headed by Handy all along, have been far more plentiful.
What does an ASPIRE success story look like?
“Hmm,” Handy says, “I would say there’s one right there.”
She points to a golden banner in the corner of the classroom that includes a picture of Camden Toogood. Then a student at Lee High School in Montgomery, Toogood came to ASPIRE for the first time in 2011, the summer before her freshman year. She never left.
Toogood is now a sophomore at Alabama State majoring in English education with dreams of becoming a high school teacher herself, just like Handy.
“Mrs. Handy is amazing,” Toogood said. “I love Mrs. Handy, but I think it’s really her passion. … She said she always wanted to open her own school but she never did that, but this is like her own mini-school. She really loves everyone that’s involved in the program, and it’s like her baby.”
Toogood’s story is far from the only positive one Handy has produced through ASPIRE. In fact, her favorite story involves a student still in the program. Though she declined to name him, Handy identified the mentee as a student at Lanier High and described him as more than a bit hesitant when he first came to ASPIRE in the ninth grade.
“He was one I really didn’t think would really stick with the program,” Handy said. “Now, if he can’t get here on the bus, he walks. He’s always walked home. I’ve seen a shift in his whole mindset, because he’s in the 12th grade and wanting to go to college.”
Kendell Lampkin is yet another success story, one that is still very much in progress. Lampkin, a student at Bethany Christian Academy who started at ASPIRE in sixth grade, has seen steady improvement in his grades since enrolling in the program. Now an eighth-grader, he says he plans to stay in the program through graduation.
“My goal when I came here was to hurry up and get over with. The goal now is to take my time and learn as much as I can as I grow,” Lampkin said. ““You can come here and have fun and learn new things. … (Handy is) a good person and she loves kid and enjoys helping others.”
For Handy, the success stories far outweigh the few who slip through the cracks.
“When someone comes in and they’re so happy about their grade —‘Look what I got!’ — that’s the bright light that keeps me going,” she said. “Knowing that if I made a difference today with just one child, just one, then I’ve had a good day.”
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As the day winds down, Handy sits in a chair near the end of a long table and overlooks the classroom with a black “ASU ASPIRE” lanyard hanging from her neck. She tells the students to pack their things — it’s a few minutes before 5 p.m. — and smiles approvingly as they stuff their papers into their backpacks.
She slides her knee-high black boots from under the table and rises to escort the children outside, where their parents await on West Fifth Street. Handy stands at the top of the steps just outside Abernathy Annex as she watches over the children, occasionally calling one closer if they venture too close to the street. She then returns inside, gathers her things and slips quietly out the back door.
Another day complete, another 25 lives potentially changed forever.
“That’s what I tell these children: All you’ve got to have is a vision, and you keep working toward that vision,” Handy said. “You can’t do anything about where you came from. It’s where you’re going.”
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