Guest contribution to the blog from Debbie Connell. Eastman’s participating location is the Frozen Bean:

You can be ‘All in for Kids’ on Oct. 19 during Dine Out for Kids
More than 600,000 of Georgia’s 1.6 million students in K-12 public schools live in poverty, creating a myriad of problems including hunger, limited development, and other issues that make it difficult to concentrate in school. About 13% of these students live in unsafe communities and 17% of Georgia’s 4th graders are chronically absent from school.

Even more sobering, 31,000 Georgia students will drop out of high school.

For more than 40 years, Communities In Schools (CIS)of Georgia has worked inside public schools, from kindergarten to grade 12, to help students and families remove the barriers that prevent students from learning. With support from people like you, Communities In Schools of Georgia breaks the cycle of poverty and academic failure by linking students to critical educational and community-based resources.

As the nation’s largest dropout prevention organization, CIS Georgia serves more than 128,000 children in 233 Georgia schools each year. Our model works; CIS-served students have an 88% high school graduation rate.

So how can you help? Join us October 19 for our annual Dine Out for Kids event. When you dine at one of the participating restaurants (and mention you are there to support Communities In Schools) these restaurants will give a percentage of their proceeds that day to support at-risk youth in need of your help.