Presenting Neil Shorthouse with his award are from left to right: Gary Price, Managing Partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers; Marie Gooding, First VP & COO, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta; Russ Hardin, President, The Robert W. Woodruff Foundation, Inc.; Neil Shorthouse, President, Communities In Schools of Georgia and David Martin, GCEE Executive Director.
Communities In Schools (CIS) of Georgia president and national network co-founder Neil Shorthouse was honored by the Georgia Council on Economic Education with the VanLandingham Commitment to Education Award. The award is presented yearly to an individual who exhibits a long-term commitment to education.
Shorthouse received the honor for over 40 years of dedicated service to improving the lives of at-risk youth throughout Georgia. He, along with Bill Milliken and David Lewis founded CIS in 1972 under the name Exodus, which helped urban students in Atlanta graduate and find success in life. As the organization continued to evolved, then-President Jimmy Carter provided funding to help make it a national organization. Today, CIS has a national presence with 16 state offices and 185 local affiliates, including 40 in Georgia.
To go along with the award, President Carter sent Shorthouse a letter congratulating him on the honor, noting his devotion to Georgia’s children and tireless public service. Through a video testimonial, United States Senator Johnny Isakson echoed Carter’s statements that there is no better example than Shorthouse, who has turned would-be dropouts into successes.
The VanLandingham Award is named after William J. VanLandingham and honors his legacy of working in education, particularly with the Georgia Council on Economic Education. VanLandingham played an instrumental role in the evolution of the Georgia Council, which combines business and education. The combination of business and education is a direct correlation with CIS, who combines community resources with schools to help at-risk students succeed in school and in life.