AVID and Chick-fil-A partner up to help South Hills High students become leaders in their community, one step at a time.

“This summer Chick-Fil-A actually reached out to us. It’s called the Leader Academy and Chick-Fil-A has been doing it for 20-25 years,” AVID Coordinator Casie James said.

Chick-fil-A’s program, Leader Academy, is a program dedicated to helping students gather and develop the skills necessary to make a difference in their community.

“The program itself gives kids the tools to be leaders in their community,” James said.

Casie James felt that this was just ‘hand in hand’ since Chick-Fil-A had the same goal as AVID, which is turning students into leaders.

“The entire process of AVID is to try and get the kids to be leaders in the community, and be ready for college and make them the best possible they can be…and that’s what it sounded like they were also doing at Chick-Fil-A,” James said.

Students of AVID take part in leader labs every month, each leading up to a big project at the end of the year. This December, the lab “Do Good December” is a lab where students are going to put together a service project for the people at South Hills. Chick-Fil-A and AVID’s similar programs convey how they want to help the community and turn students into leaders.

“Every lab is a small, first step on how to become a community member and then it teaches them in small pieces…then at the end of the year they’ll have a big project that will be community based,” James said.