Baylor School senior Mary Davis Kennedy, of Red Bank, and Hixson High School senior Allison Eblin are becoming celebrities.
Their faces are gracing two separate Chattanooga billboards. The reason? They are living "On Point."
Inside the Chattanooga Trade and Convention Center March 1 at 6:30 p.m., On Point, a local program for empowering teens to make the right choices, will showcase them and several other area teens living their lives in a positive way by allowing them to tell their story. Guest speaker Wes Moore, author of "The Other Wes Moore," will also tell his personal story as the grand finale.
Tickets are $75, $375 for a table of eight or $750 for a VIP/corporate table, which includes eight passes to a special reception.
"[Through On Point] I learned that it was more important to have a few really true friends than a room full of fair-weather friendships," Eblin said in her story featured on the On Point website. "Looking back, On Point helped me turn my life around. Now, I'm focused on my future, healthy relationships and standing up for what I believe in. And that's a real good feeling."
Her father passed away when she was 7. Growing up in a single parent home, Eblin said she felt overwhelmed by everything and found herself hanging out with the wrong people before On Point.
"On Point has taught me to stay focused on what's important," she said. "They told me to be careful of the relationships I choose and to hang out with people that are focused."
Kennedy said fitting in at school is an issue most teenagers face, but she found truly great friends that she can count on when she joined the On Point Teen Board. She serves also on the Red Circle admissions team at Baylor.
"I've learned through On Point that it's better to be yourself than to get other people to like you," she said. "[With my On Point friends] there's no pretense or phoniness or 'I'm better than you are.' There's just us - keeping it real.
"Lots of people have read my story online at liveonpoint.org. Hopefully my story will encourage Baylor students to join On Point next year."
Kennedy plans to enroll at Auburn University for the fall of 2012.
Eblin plans to enroll either at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga or Tennessee Wesleyan University in the fall, where she will major in social behavior sciences and minor in business management. She said she would like to work for a nonprofit or start her own. Drawing on her passion for helping the homeless she has already helped launch Help the Hurting Homeless Project at Lupton Drive Baptist Church.
'the next greatest generation'
Eblin and Kennedy are among a handful of On Point Teen Board members selected to be on billboards around Chattanooga.
These diverse photos of students are part of On Point's new ad campaign titled "The Next Greatest Generation." It features real On Point students from both public and private schools in Hamilton County. Headlines on the billboards say "This is My Story" and showcase the face and name of an On Point Teen Board member.
The On Point Web address, http://www.liveonpoint.org, is also posted on the billboards. When spectators go online, they can read the students' stories.
Visitors are spending 3.5 minutes per page, and students featured are starting to be recognized by people, said On Point representatives.
On Point started out as an abstinence program in Chattanooga in 1991. Now it empowers youth to identify a positive support system of peers and adults, sharpen critical thinking skills to analyze choices, instills factors to help teens overcome obstacles, helps teens possess a vision for their future and helps them discover self-worth.