How Northwest Georgia Serves Kids
There is a particular kind of courage it takes for a community to look honestly at the hardest moments young people face and then decide to do something about it before those moments arrive, rather than after. Northwest Georgia has that courage, and it shows up in the quiet, sustained work of three organizations that rarely appear in the same conversation but are, in the truest sense, telling the same story.
Start in Catoosa County, where LIFT Youth Center runs two free afterschool programs for sixth through twelfth grade students, one at the Claudia Nance Rollins Youth Center in Ringgold and another at the R. Randall Rollins Youth Center in Fort Oglethorpe.
The name is an acronym and a promise: Loved as they are, Inspired to be more, Found in community, Trusted to make a difference. Behind that promise is tutoring, homework help, Teen Group Therapy with a licensed counselor, a Youth Recovery Initiative, and Family Nights, all offered at no cost to families in a county where more than half of LIFT's students qualify for free or reduced lunch.
Recent data from the 2024 Georgia Health Survey found that nearly 800 middle and high school students in Catoosa County reported feeling depressed, sad, or withdrawn for ten or more days in the past month, and more than 150 had attempted suicide in the prior year. Those numbers are exactly why LIFT exists, and why its recent expansion, more than doubling its footprint to serve more students across the county, matters so much.
The Community Foundation of Northwest Georgia was part of that planning conversation, offering guidance during a demanding season of growth, and has also hosted LIFT's endowment, the kind of long-term stewardship infrastructure that helps a growing nonprofit build real sustainability for the years ahead. Learn more about Lift Youth Center here.
LIFT Youth Center Starts the School Year by Connecting With Local Students
A few counties over, in Whitfield and Murray and across Dalton Public Schools and Christian Heritage School, that same instinct to show up early takes a different shape entirely. Every year, thousands of tenth graders walk through Teen Maze, an immersive experience built by a coalition of school systems, first responders, hospital staff, and community organizations to help students confront the real-world consequences of risky decisions before they ever face them.
Now in its eleventh year, the program opens with a speaker such as Chris Sandy, whose personal testimony through his work with Enduring Regret sets the tone for everything students encounter as they move through the Maze. Because Teen Maze runs entirely on volunteers with no independent income stream, that opening address, and the event itself, depend on local grants and donations.
The Community Foundation of Northwest Georgia has helped make Sandy's presence possible and has supported the event's operation since its very beginning, a steady partner across all eleven years rather than a one-time sponsor. Learn more about Teen Maze and volunteer here.
And then there is Brianna, whose story sits at the center of what Advocates for Children does across Northwest Georgia. When she entered foster care, she needed one thing more than any program could provide: someone she could trust. She found that person through a CASA volunteer, matched in part through an investment from the Community Foundation of Northwest Georgia.
Month after month, that advocate showed up, made sure Brianna's voice was heard in the rooms where decisions about her future were being made, and remained a steady presence even after Brianna was reunified with her father.
Advocates for Children now reaches more than 20,000 children, youth, and families each year across eleven programs organized around advocacy and justice, housing and stability, and child and family wellbeing, including CASA services in Gordon County and a Children's Advocacy Center where kids who have experienced abuse can begin healing in a safe, coordinated environment.
The Foundation's investment there has grown into support for a capital campaign that will create new spaces for hope and healing for years to come. Learn more about Advocates for Children here.
Volunteers and community partners came together at Advocates for Children’s seasonal closet swap to support local children and families.
Three organizations. Three different ages, three different kinds of risk, three different rooms where a young person might sit down with an adult who has chosen to be there.
What connects LIFT, Teen Maze, and Advocates for Children is not a shared program or a shared building. It is a shared belief that the earlier a community shows up for its children, the more it can change what their story becomes. The Community Foundation of Northwest Georgia has had the privilege of standing alongside all three, not as the reason any of this works, but as one more partner willing to invest in the people already doing it.
What would it take for every young person in Northwest Georgia to have someone like a LIFT tutor, a Teen Maze volunteer, or a CASA advocate in their corner before the hardest moment ever arrives? These three organizations suggest the answer is already taking shape, right here at home.
