Santa Ana, California (PRWEB) January 03, 2014
The Orange County Young Executives (OCYE) announced the beneficiary of its 2014 Charity Gala will be THINK Together and the hundreds of thousands of under served youth the organization serves in after school and summer programs.
“We are both honored and grateful for the support of the OCYE,” said THINK Together Founder and CEO Randy Barth. “By contributing to THINK Together, these young executives become part of a large, collaborative group of business and education leaders who are helping us close an alarming achievement gap that is harming a large portion of our state’s children.”
THINK Together is a nonprofit education organization that partners with schools and school districts to provide extended learning time programs, (early literacy, after-school, summer learning, etc.) to more than 100,000 youth statewide.
OCYE is a volunteer-based, nonprofit organization comprised of Orange County’s top business and community leaders under the age of 45 who work together to make a difference in Orange County by supporting local charities and producing forums and symposiums to encourage economic growth.
“OCYE selected THINK Together as its charity partner for this year’s gala after a several months’ review of over 70 local and national charities devoted to serving children, including reviewing audited financials, evaluating the numbers of children served and personally interviewing the leadership of the top 5 charities,” said OCYE founder and CEO Brian Davis. “OCYE is honored to be in a position to work with THINK Together in raising awareness and the needed dollars to serve more children and provide the one key ingredient to ensuring success in life – education.”
In its first year, OCYE raised more than $100,000 for children’s charities. The gala will take place Friday, March 14 at the Island Hotel in Newport Beach.
Prior to the Gala, OCYE will hold a symposium in February 2014 with THINK Together’s Randy Barth discussing education reform and trends.
“Many business leaders are unaware that close to 50 percent of Latino and African American students drop out of high school,” Barth said. “Of those who don’t drop out, only 18 percent go on to attend college and even fewer numbers of those actually graduate.”
Ignoring this achievement gap could produce a crippling effect on our economy. Some economists estimate that by the year 2020, one million jobs will go unfilled because the workforce won’t have the skills to fill them.
About THINK Together
THINK Together is a nonprofit education organization that partners with schools and school districts to support systems, mostly for low-income students, in order to close the achievement gap and has grown into the state’s largest provider of Extended Learning Time programs, (early literacy, after-school, summer learning, etc.). THINK Together currently serving more than 100,000 students at more than 442 locations across 41 school districts from San Diego to Sacramento. Partnering with school administrators and teachers, its academic programs and dedicated team of 3,000 employees are helping students close the achievement gap. THINK is an acronym: Teaching, Helping, Inspiring & Nurturing Kids. For more information, call (888) 485-THINK or visit http://www.THINKtogether.org or http://www.facebook.com/THINKtogether.