May 28, 2025 • 12 mins
We spoke with Rhonda Rawlins about the mission of Glastonbury A Better Chance (GABC) is to offer young men of color from underserved communities who have demonstrated ability and good character the opportunity to obtain an excellent education in the town of Glastonbury.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning, Thank you for listening to Community Access. My
guest this morning is Rhonda Rawlins. She's a long time
board member from the Glastonbury A Better Chance.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Good morning, good morning. I'm always excited to be able
to talk about the program whenever I can.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
So so for people who don't know about Glastonbury A
Better Chance. What is your mission? What is it all about?
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Well, it started fifty years ago in Glastonbury, but it's
a national program that came out of actually in the sixties.
I believe it was some students that the Garments became
very aware of the inequities and educations for underserved communities,
communities of colors, so they wanted to do something. They
(00:43):
started running some summer programs with some surrounding students and
communities and it was very successful. So they wanted to
build on that and expand it. So here we are
sixty years later for the Natural Program, and the headquarters
are in New York and there's a team of people
(01:05):
there who have and they've built relations The organization has
built relationships with different schools where teachers and educators nominee
or you know, select students to show a lot of
promise that are doing very well and their parents are
all about education, and then they are directed to ABC
(01:25):
and they work with them over a period of months
and get them together and just talk about the different
aspects of a better chance overall. And we are one
path within that. So there are private schools under the
ABC umbrella, but they don't typically give a fal tuition scholarship,
(01:48):
so the parents or the family would have to be
able to make up the difference. There's also a few
independent day schools, and the one that comes to mind
would the Bronx Science Academy as a highly rated day school.
I'm not sure about tuition with that. And then there's US.
(02:08):
We are a community school program. So the CSPs are
programs with in town to have highly ranked high schools.
So there are nine of us in Connecticut, and there's
another Boy's House in Simsbury and the rest are there's
just you along the short line. Some are all girls,
(02:31):
some are all boys. And then in Fairfield County for
nine CSPs in Connecticut, and we don't charge a nickel.
We don't charge any money, so it makes it easier
for some of the families of this students that have
been identified just to be able to make this step
(02:51):
towards a better opportunity to prepare them for college.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
That's wonderful. How are they chosen to be involve all.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Well, they're initially they're selected true national and then they
are presented with the three options and they would apply
and express their interests, and then each of them would
reach out to the students. We get there, We get
we get their paperwork from their schools, and we get
(03:21):
to see their grades and what have you, and whatever
personal information we can gather from them, you know, the
recommendations from the UH guidance counselors or principles or teachers,
and then we we invite them to interview with us.
So we start out with a like a zoom call initially,
(03:42):
and then we invite them to come to UH visit
us in Glastonbury. We spend the day with the parents
and the Perspective scholar would spend the day attending classes
with one of our scholars, and so we would myself
and their board member would take the parents around Glastonbury,
(04:03):
talk about the school, talk about the program, take them
to the house so they can see where their child
would be living. And it's very much a home environment.
And I think that's a big appeal to a lot
of parents that they're not going to be living necessarily
in a dormitory or anything like that at that young age. So,
(04:26):
you know, it is an older house, but we have
capacity for eight scholars to live there, and we have
two residence directors that live little apartments that open up
on the interior to the house that live with the
with the boys, they have regular full time jobs and
then you know, after school they're there and we have
(04:46):
other you know, all the board members fill in if
there's any need for coverage. We always have an adult
on the premises. Why the boys are there.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
It's a regular home.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Yeah, they have tours to do and those really pay.
Everybody rotates, some have kitchen duties, and they all do
their own laundry, so they have designated days to do
their laundry. And there's just you know, we just had
a spring clean up and folks from the community came
and help and First Church and Glass when Mary helped
(05:17):
those out, and we had our boys out there. So
we try to teach them what it's like to have
be a homeowner in a community and the other thing
about doing tours and doing their own laundry. I have
heard from so many of our scholars, you know that
when they get on campus, it's not they're used to
(05:38):
doing these things for themselves, whereas some other kids where
you know, maybe mom didd off for them, it's more
of an adjustment. But they felt They've often said they
felt very prepared personally, aside from the opportunity for educational
opportunities here.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
That's wonderful. Can you share any stories without mentioning names,
how this service has benefited these children.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Oh, my goodness. One in particular really stands out. A
young man. I remember when he came. He from New York.
He's a single mom, and I remember him coming in
as a freshman talking about everything he was going to
do after he graduated college and what he was going
to do back in his community. And I think he
(06:25):
graduated in twenty twelve, and he is doing everything he
said as a fourteen year old, so enormously proud of him.
He wrote a book called The Winter's Cactus, and he
called me up and he said, hey, I wrote a book.
You think I could have a book signing? And we
did it for him, and it's just, you know, the
(06:46):
example of a cactus in the winter. Was really spoke
to him as him coming out of a particular environment
into this new environment and that adjustment for him personally.
But he has done everything he said he would. He
went to Yukon, he went to I Forgot This college.
(07:07):
He went to New York, but he majored in finance
and he is helping people in his community back home
start their own businesses. He's all about that and he's
done very very well. He invested in a play. He's
paying his mother's mortgage with that. He saved enough money,
(07:28):
so he's very disciplined. He saved enough money to buy
a house in New Jersey. He's not living in it.
He's using the ergant ARABBND so it's an income source
for him. So he also created a class a program
that teaches financial literacy, like real life financial instructions, and
(07:53):
he taught it to our boys via you know, long
distance on zoom. But and that's what he's doing. He's
doing that in his community. He gives back in every
way he can, and he's just you know, he had
a vision at fourteen. It's hard to believe, you know,
he just really had a focus and he stayed on
(08:15):
it and he's doing everything that he said he would.
It's just really impressive. Impressive, you know, so some really
take all advantage. And we have one of our students
who's graduating from Trinity College right now this year, if
he hasn't already in the last month, and just they've
(08:38):
gone on to some really great schools and they're doing
they have careers that would have been unheard of based
on where they came from and the family history, and
just you know, they are exceeding and and I you know,
they'll say, well, a lot of times people will want
(09:00):
to donate to a larger organization, but I'm telling you
that you change one life, and it touches everyone that
they're associated with, their family, their community. You know, it
has a ripple effect as they go forward. And we're
trying to have all of our alum kind of come together,
(09:23):
and so we are creating now a college education Fund
so that they can help each other. You know. So
if we're going back fifty years, a lot of the
older alums have established careers and they're in a position
to really help guide and help out our younger graduates
as they get out of college. So we want them
(09:45):
to feel that they have that group of people to
count on who have You've all experienced the same opportunity
in Bostonberry. So it's really heartwarming and it's wonderful and
we're very excited about that. And that's part of what
we want to do with this opportunity is to get
(10:08):
funding so that we can help our students over their
full years in college with the all the usual expenses
that come up, you know, books and maybe a laptop
and whatever expenses that are typical of any student getting
on campus, the expenses that you might have, and we
want to be able to disperse it over four years
(10:31):
so that we can help, you know, ease ease that
so then they don't have to worry about that if
they can just focus on their studies. So that's what
we're going to do with whatever we raise here, and
we have a group of anonymous downers that are going
to not are going to match anything that we raise
one hundred percent up to thirty thousand dollars, so coupled
(10:55):
with whatever we might get from this promotion, pretent it
could be one hundred and fifteen thousand dollars I mean
percent match for these donations, so and what their families
able to do provide for them. So we'd like to
be able to help with just the regular things. Nothing
you know, extraordinary, but just whatever you student needs on campus.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Well, you're doing amazing work. I'm speaking with Ronda Rollins.
She's a longtime board member of Glastonbury A Better Chance.
Their website is GLASTONBURYABC dot org. If you'd like to
make a donation for Bertie's for charity, Webster Bank will
donate fifteen cents to every dollar, so it's a dollar
and fifteen cents that you're donating. You can volunteer, you
(11:42):
can sponsor find out about all of their programs and services. Again,
it's GLASTONBURYABC dot org. Ronda, thank you so much for
being here today and for serving the community.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
It is my pleasure and my honor to be part
of this and we really appreciate your time and your support.
You so much
Good morning, Thank you for listening to Community Access. My
guest this morning is Rhonda Rawlins. She's a long time
board member from the Glastonbury A Better Chance.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Good morning, good morning. I'm always excited to be able
to talk about the program whenever I can.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
So so for people who don't know about Glastonbury A
Better Chance. What is your mission? What is it all about?
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Well, it started fifty years ago in Glastonbury, but it's
a national program that came out of actually in the sixties.
I believe it was some students that the Garments became
very aware of the inequities and educations for underserved communities,
communities of colors, so they wanted to do something. They
(00:43):
started running some summer programs with some surrounding students and
communities and it was very successful. So they wanted to
build on that and expand it. So here we are
sixty years later for the Natural Program, and the headquarters
are in New York and there's a team of people
(01:05):
there who have and they've built relations The organization has
built relationships with different schools where teachers and educators nominee
or you know, select students to show a lot of
promise that are doing very well and their parents are
all about education, and then they are directed to ABC
(01:25):
and they work with them over a period of months
and get them together and just talk about the different
aspects of a better chance overall. And we are one
path within that. So there are private schools under the
ABC umbrella, but they don't typically give a fal tuition scholarship,
(01:48):
so the parents or the family would have to be
able to make up the difference. There's also a few
independent day schools, and the one that comes to mind
would the Bronx Science Academy as a highly rated day school.
I'm not sure about tuition with that. And then there's US.
(02:08):
We are a community school program. So the CSPs are
programs with in town to have highly ranked high schools.
So there are nine of us in Connecticut, and there's
another Boy's House in Simsbury and the rest are there's
just you along the short line. Some are all girls,
(02:31):
some are all boys. And then in Fairfield County for
nine CSPs in Connecticut, and we don't charge a nickel.
We don't charge any money, so it makes it easier
for some of the families of this students that have
been identified just to be able to make this step
(02:51):
towards a better opportunity to prepare them for college.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
That's wonderful. How are they chosen to be involve all.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Well, they're initially they're selected true national and then they
are presented with the three options and they would apply
and express their interests, and then each of them would
reach out to the students. We get there, We get
we get their paperwork from their schools, and we get
(03:21):
to see their grades and what have you, and whatever
personal information we can gather from them, you know, the
recommendations from the UH guidance counselors or principles or teachers,
and then we we invite them to interview with us.
So we start out with a like a zoom call initially,
(03:42):
and then we invite them to come to UH visit
us in Glastonbury. We spend the day with the parents
and the Perspective scholar would spend the day attending classes
with one of our scholars, and so we would myself
and their board member would take the parents around Glastonbury,
(04:03):
talk about the school, talk about the program, take them
to the house so they can see where their child
would be living. And it's very much a home environment.
And I think that's a big appeal to a lot
of parents that they're not going to be living necessarily
in a dormitory or anything like that at that young age. So,
(04:26):
you know, it is an older house, but we have
capacity for eight scholars to live there, and we have
two residence directors that live little apartments that open up
on the interior to the house that live with the
with the boys, they have regular full time jobs and
then you know, after school they're there and we have
(04:46):
other you know, all the board members fill in if
there's any need for coverage. We always have an adult
on the premises. Why the boys are there.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
It's a regular home.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Yeah, they have tours to do and those really pay.
Everybody rotates, some have kitchen duties, and they all do
their own laundry, so they have designated days to do
their laundry. And there's just you know, we just had
a spring clean up and folks from the community came
and help and First Church and Glass when Mary helped
(05:17):
those out, and we had our boys out there. So
we try to teach them what it's like to have
be a homeowner in a community and the other thing
about doing tours and doing their own laundry. I have
heard from so many of our scholars, you know that
when they get on campus, it's not they're used to
(05:38):
doing these things for themselves, whereas some other kids where
you know, maybe mom didd off for them, it's more
of an adjustment. But they felt They've often said they
felt very prepared personally, aside from the opportunity for educational
opportunities here.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
That's wonderful. Can you share any stories without mentioning names,
how this service has benefited these children.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Oh, my goodness. One in particular really stands out. A
young man. I remember when he came. He from New York.
He's a single mom, and I remember him coming in
as a freshman talking about everything he was going to
do after he graduated college and what he was going
to do back in his community. And I think he
(06:25):
graduated in twenty twelve, and he is doing everything he
said as a fourteen year old, so enormously proud of him.
He wrote a book called The Winter's Cactus, and he
called me up and he said, hey, I wrote a book.
You think I could have a book signing? And we
did it for him, and it's just, you know, the
(06:46):
example of a cactus in the winter. Was really spoke
to him as him coming out of a particular environment
into this new environment and that adjustment for him personally.
But he has done everything he said he would. He
went to Yukon, he went to I Forgot This college.
(07:07):
He went to New York, but he majored in finance
and he is helping people in his community back home
start their own businesses. He's all about that and he's
done very very well. He invested in a play. He's
paying his mother's mortgage with that. He saved enough money,
(07:28):
so he's very disciplined. He saved enough money to buy
a house in New Jersey. He's not living in it.
He's using the ergant ARABBND so it's an income source
for him. So he also created a class a program
that teaches financial literacy, like real life financial instructions, and
(07:53):
he taught it to our boys via you know, long
distance on zoom. But and that's what he's doing. He's
doing that in his community. He gives back in every
way he can, and he's just you know, he had
a vision at fourteen. It's hard to believe, you know,
he just really had a focus and he stayed on
(08:15):
it and he's doing everything that he said he would.
It's just really impressive. Impressive, you know, so some really
take all advantage. And we have one of our students
who's graduating from Trinity College right now this year, if
he hasn't already in the last month, and just they've
(08:38):
gone on to some really great schools and they're doing
they have careers that would have been unheard of based
on where they came from and the family history, and
just you know, they are exceeding and and I you know,
they'll say, well, a lot of times people will want
(09:00):
to donate to a larger organization, but I'm telling you
that you change one life, and it touches everyone that
they're associated with, their family, their community. You know, it
has a ripple effect as they go forward. And we're
trying to have all of our alum kind of come together,
(09:23):
and so we are creating now a college education Fund
so that they can help each other. You know. So
if we're going back fifty years, a lot of the
older alums have established careers and they're in a position
to really help guide and help out our younger graduates
as they get out of college. So we want them
(09:45):
to feel that they have that group of people to
count on who have You've all experienced the same opportunity
in Bostonberry. So it's really heartwarming and it's wonderful and
we're very excited about that. And that's part of what
we want to do with this opportunity is to get
(10:08):
funding so that we can help our students over their
full years in college with the all the usual expenses
that come up, you know, books and maybe a laptop
and whatever expenses that are typical of any student getting
on campus, the expenses that you might have, and we
want to be able to disperse it over four years
(10:31):
so that we can help, you know, ease ease that
so then they don't have to worry about that if
they can just focus on their studies. So that's what
we're going to do with whatever we raise here, and
we have a group of anonymous downers that are going
to not are going to match anything that we raise
one hundred percent up to thirty thousand dollars, so coupled
(10:55):
with whatever we might get from this promotion, pretent it
could be one hundred and fifteen thousand dollars I mean
percent match for these donations, so and what their families
able to do provide for them. So we'd like to
be able to help with just the regular things. Nothing
you know, extraordinary, but just whatever you student needs on campus.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Well, you're doing amazing work. I'm speaking with Ronda Rollins.
She's a longtime board member of Glastonbury A Better Chance.
Their website is GLASTONBURYABC dot org. If you'd like to
make a donation for Bertie's for charity, Webster Bank will
donate fifteen cents to every dollar, so it's a dollar
and fifteen cents that you're donating. You can volunteer, you
(11:42):
can sponsor find out about all of their programs and services. Again,
it's GLASTONBURYABC dot org. Ronda, thank you so much for
being here today and for serving the community.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
It is my pleasure and my honor to be part
of this and we really appreciate your time and your support.
You so much
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