WS Chronicle

By Busta Brown

Kim Walker is a single mother, educator, innovator and entrepreneur. She’s also the CEO of some wonderful programs for our youth. S.M.A.R.T. (Students Making A Right Turn),  A.R.T.S. (A Right To Shine) and F.O.C.U.S. (Finding Our Careers Under Sponsors). 

The programs are for boys and girls respectively ages 4-12, adding a grade yearly. They offer students in the Triad area mentoring, tutoring and other opportunities that will help guide them closer toward graduating and being successful in school.

Wake Forest medical students have volunteered and work with the programs, especially with the higher grade school students. Walker has always had a passion to motivate our youth, “I have a passion for embracing, edifying and motivating youth to make good positive choices that will lead them toward making successful decisions. My supplement education programs provide the students with a positive learning environment where they can safely begin to identify their own unique struggles and together we can begin to help them,” Walker said.

I asked her to share how it’s done: “by overcoming those struggles by making the challenges fun and positive, not frustrating and alienating. The work I’ve done and the work put in by the students I’ve helped has improved the abilities of students to perform academically and has ensured that many students in the school system don’t fall through the gap. I hope that with time I can continue to up the quality of the supplemental education and entrepreneurship skills and training,” Walker said.

Walker has been approached by other community leaders from other states to expand her programs. “These offers have made me overjoyed but I have rejected them as of right now because I want to be sure that the programs I’ve created are as incredible as possible in Winston-Salem. I value transparency with my staff, with my investors, and with the students and families who take part in my programs. I value increasing the resources that my programs have and thus improving our capabilities to provide remarkable supplementary education,” she said.

Walker said her friends and family are very supportive, because they know her passion to help youth reach their goals. “My passion for education is so contagious that some of the volunteers and staff members for my programs were originally people I struck conversations within stores and on the street who showed an interest in the programs and filled out applications showing their education and professional backgrounds,” she said.

The students Walker has worked with have gone on to either community colleges and four-year universities. “They’ve become engaged members of society with positive impressions of education and with the skills to provide employers with fantastic employees and college classrooms with remarkable students,” Walker said.

The programs take the students on field trips like The CIAA, Myrtle Beach, Girls and Boys Empowerment Conferences and more. They feed the hungry, bring dolls to little girls in homeless shelters, and donate their company T-shirts to local schools.

Kim Walker said, “My goal is to make modern education accessible to any and all the students in the program, even those who’ve begun to underperform. The S.M.A.R.T. Co. will provide them with the opportunity to work for a company that will put them to work with the right skills, training with advancing in the cooperation.”

For more info, call (336) 837-0270 or (336) 695-2753.

Also visit the website http://www.justforhims2c.org/home.html.