2006 Martin Luther King Jr. Community Service Award: presented to founder, Sarah Hemminger

2006 Martin Luther King Jr. Community Service Award: presented to founder, Sarah Hemminger

Two years ago, Sarah Hemminger asked Dunbar High School for the names of its 10 worst students. Given 20 names, Hemminger enlisted 15 biomedical engineering graduate students and medical students for a concept she called the Incentive Mentoring Program. She and her recruits not only began to mentor the 20 Dunbar students after school but required them to pass the good along by working one Saturday each month in such organizations as soup kitchens and by becoming mentors themselves to local grade-school students. After a single semester in the program, 70 percent of the Dunbar students passed all their courses; after two years, it was 80 percent. Two students received all A's, and two have been awarded college scholarships. Today, Hemminger's cadre of mentors has grown to 60, and she's set up an administrative structure to ensure that her program can continue after she graduates.