The Anchor

The Anchor is a student who is carefully selected by the Coordinators of Disability Services at the University of West Georgia for intelligence, sensitivity and initiative.  He or she is hired to assist severely disabled students in ways that can help them surmount obstacles that to non-disabled people might be very small, but might be the cause of the disabled student dropping out of college.  

The Anchor might, for example, read mail and go to the grocery store for a blind student; or type a weekly paper for a student whose hands are too painful to allow typing; or meet for lunch once a week with a student who is too shy to speak up in class due to a psychological disorder. The helper student is called an Anchor, because he or she helps to anchor the disabled student in college.  
 
The Anchor works five hours a week for fifteen weeks for two semesters, a total of 30 weeks, at $8.00 an hour, a total of $1,200.  A grant in past years supplied the $1,200.  But the grant was not awarded this year, leaving a number of disabled students without the extra help they need. This is why the office of Disability Services is trying to raise the $1,200 privately.  
 
Last year on D-Day, $477 was raised to help pay the Anchor’s salary by raffling off a basket of donated articles. We hope that D-Day, the Disabilities Day set aside for raising awareness of disabilities on campus, will raise at least that much this year on the second annual D-Day on October 15. Cash contributions designating the Anchor fund can be made at any time.