Taco Bell®, Get Schooled And Viacom Join Kendrick Lamar, James Harden And MTV’s Sway To Reward And Inspire “Graduate For Mas™” Teens In Bethel, Alaska! Get Schooled, and its partners, the Taco Bell® Foundation for Teens™ and Viacom, are recognizing the extraordinary efforts of Bethel Regional High School’s staff, students and community.
MTV news correspondent Sway said, “As part of the Viacom family, I’ve had the privilege to join in on numerous events for Viacommunity and for Get Schooled, which speaks directly to students and inspires them to do what they need to on the road to success. I’m proud to have the chance to celebrate Bethel’s teens and the investment they made in themselves and their futures.”
In the spring of 2013, Get Schooled, a national non-profit, sponsored the three-month competition involving 325 high schools in 14 states aimed at improving college readiness. Bethel’s student council spearheaded the effort by mobilizing their peers to participate in the competition and prepare for college. As a result of their efforts, Bethel’s students seized the top prize, coming together to achieve a 100 percent participation rate in activities such as Twitter chats with college experts and college exploratory sessions.
Most importantly, more than 80 percent of its graduating seniors worked with their College & Career Guide to apply to college or technical schools. Four other Alaska College & Career Advising Corps high schools placed in the top 15. The friendly competition was supported by USA Funds.
“In the beginning, a lot of students thought our school was too small, and we didn’t have a chance,” said former Bethel student leader Alfred Wallace, 18, now a freshman at the University of Alaska, Anchorage. “But once we came together as a unified student body, we realized that we could compete with students from all over the country. By winning, we were able to show that all it takes is motivation and energy, and even the small town of Bethel can succeed in a national competition.”
“At Taco Bell, we passionately serve each other and the communities around us. We made it to Bethel once, against all odds. The opportunity to return shows that feeding people’s lives with ‘mas’ can mean much more than just giving them food,” said Taco Bell® CEO Greg Creed. “It can mean helping them find their purpose and giving them the tools they need to get there.”
For more than 20 years, the Taco Bell® Foundation for Teens™ has dedicated its efforts to identifying and addressing the issues that teens face as they navigate the path to graduation. Its core programs include Graduate for Mas™, a digital platform co-created with Get Schooled that provides the tools, support and community resources high school students need to graduate high school and achieve mas. Since its May launch, more than 25,000 teens have made the Graduate for Mas pledge to graduate.
For more information on Taco Bell and its Foundation, visit TacoBell.com and TacoBellForTeens.org. To learn more about Get Schooled, visit GetSchooled.com!
