JACKSONVILLE, N.C. (WNCT) – The Give Back Careers Program is starting in the fall of 2022 in Onslow County.

The program provides mentoring and job preparation to students as early as 8th grade. They help them explore options such as apprenticeships, trade schools, community colleges, and even 4-year universities.

For their first year of the program, they plan to assist around 50 students in Onslow County, prioritizing children with adverse circumstances.

Founder and CEO of Give Something Back, Bob Carr, said they will work with students as long as they need to help reach their career of choice.

“Onslow County has a lot of great resources. We just want to make them available to a wider, diverse population of students. And we think we’re an organization that can really make that work really, really well,” Carr said.

He says they are meeting periodically to work on setting up an advisory committee of people from the school system. They want to work with Coastal Carolina Community College and Eastern North Carolina Regional Skills Center.

Carr says that a lot of students who have been involved with Give Something Back, have come back to be mentors to younger students going through their programs.

He says that since 2003 when the nonprofit began, they only helped five students a year, and now they helped 222 students just last year.