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The PACE Program came about because we saw attendance as being a real challenge in this area
so we wanted to motivate these students to stay in school to make education a priority.
We thought a real motivational tool would be to offer bicycles to every student
who had perfect attendance. We presented this idea to the administrators and it was incredibly well received.
At the beginning of the school year, we presented one bike to each school.
They were to use this any way they could to motivate the students.
I went to every single school involved with this program and delivered a bicycle
and the paperwork to get started.
So for me, that was a fun part meeting all the principals, the staff at the school
I got to take pictures of the principals riding the bikes down the hallway and doing wheelies
Just all kinds of fun and exciting things, ways for them to involve their students
and get them excited about school.
Our motivation for doing this was to obviously keep these kids in school
but as the program progressed throughout the course of the school year
it became much more than just a program to keep kids in school.
It was amazing to us all the wonderful success stories that we heard throughout the course of the year.
There were kids that historically missed upwards of 40 days per year
and we're finding out that through the midpoint of the school year they had zero absences.
That was tremendously rewarding to the entire staff here at Toyota of Yakima.
I've heard great stories about self confidence,
kids that are making more friends because they're at school more. They're doing better academically.
It's improved not just each student, but the class as a whole.
They're not behind when somebody's missed several days of school and the teacher is having
to spend time with that student getting him caught up.
That keeps the whole class running class running smoother.
So we've just heard great results that we weren't even expecting.
We're coming to the end right now, the big climax with the parties
and we finally get to give the bikes away to kids. And it has made everything so worth it.
The smiles on their faces, you know, their parents, just the pride in knowing that this is something
that this child put their mind to. They've earned this bike and now they get the reward
and it's something that he or she on their very own.
And now we're at the end of the program and we're gonna have over 300 students
and tons of parents and grandparents and family members attending this event
and we're just extremely excited to present these bikes to reward them
and thank them and congratulate them and just celebrate this tremendous achievement.
So this has been a great opportunity for us here at Toyota of Yakima
to be involved with our community and have such an impact on the community as a whole,
but especially these students and their entire families and that's something that we weren't
even expecting when we started this program.
Seeing their smiling faces and having this big party is just the perfect way to end all of our hard work.