Hecla Program Offers Help To Students Who May Leave

Leslie’s parents were desperate.

Their daughter was skipping school, flunking classes. They encouraged her to stick in there and graduate, but the prospect seemed hopeless.

Then, Leslie’s counselor recommended her for Hecla Mining Co.’s Incentive Program. The company provides professionals as one-on-one mentors for troubled students. It even offers cash to those who graduate.

The program turned Leslie’s life around, her grateful mother said in a 1993 letter to Hecla Vice President Bill Booth.

“Changes were slow and gradual, even touch-and-go at times, but the bottom line is that she curtailed skipping and did well enough in her classes to graduate with a big smile in a white gown with the rest of her class.”

Roger Kauffman wears a big smile when he thinks about that letter. He was Leslie’s mentor.

“It’s a tremendously worthwhile thing to do,” he says of the time and emotional energy Hecla staffers invest in the 6-year-old program.

Education is a high-priority cause at Hecla, according to communications manager Vicki Veltkamp. The Incentive Program grew from a suggestion by President Art Brown that the company could do more for local students.

But instead of offering just another college scholarship for the “A” students, the executives turned their attention to kids who needed help in high school.

Counselors at Coeur d’Alene and Lake City high schools pick five or six students each fall who show promise, but need extra help. Lake City counselor Joy Fitzpatrick calls the Hecla program “wonderful” and unique in this area.

The students sign a contract saying they’ll attend monthly mentor programs and stay in school. Hecla pays them $30 every time they attend the programs, which cover such topics as finding a career and managing money.

The company also sets up a savings account for each student, depositing cash every month. The students get half of the money when they graduate or get a general equivalency degree. The balance goes to tuition, if they go on to college as Leslie did.

If students stay in the program for two years, there could be $1,000 in their accounts.

The mentors are often impressed by the students’ intelligence. And awed by their problems.

“I worked with one girl who was suicidal, violent, depressed,” Veltkamp says. “She could barely read.”

Kauffman, Hecla’s chief executive officer, believes the mentor’s friendship with the students is the most valuable part of the program.

As for the cash incentive, it may be a pittance to a working student who’s making lots of overtime.

“For other kids, the fact that they can buy a new sweatshirt is meaningful,” Kauffman says.

Hecla has been low-key about the program. Some employees don’t even know about it, Veltkamp says.

Kauffman hopes the idea spreads.

“If each business in town took on two or three or four students, impact would be tremendous.”

, DataTimes