So far, the 2005-2006 academic year has been an incredible success for both SpeakFirst and for FocusFirst!

SPEAKFIRST 
 Last year, although SpeakFirst students won 42% of their debate rounds, no student finished a tournament in the top ten. This year has been a different story. In September, at the Vestavia Hills High School novice debate tournament in which twenty five pairs competed - with multiple pairs participating from Mountain Brook, Vestavia, Homewood, Altamont, and Montgomery Academy - one of our pairs finished in 5^th place and one of our pairs finished 1st! Since then, we have had debate teams finish 8^th, 6^th, 5^th, and 2^nd in tournaments throughout the state, leading us to a current record of 53% of debate rounds won.

 The students were excited to see the following article, which was the cover story of the October 13^th-20^th edition of the Birmingham Weekly.

FOCUSFIRST 
In three short months, FocusFirst has trained 165 students on 11 campuses to conduct vision screenings.  Over 3,500 children, across nineteen counties, have already been screened!  All of the children who failed the screenings are currently receiving free follow-up care through the Children’s Eye Care Network, run by Sight Savers of Alabama. 

 Please take a look at the attached FocusFirst articles - one of which appeared on the front page of the Mobile Register on October 22, 2005.

  Mobile Register 10.22.05  

 
Montgomery Advertiser 11.15.05

 
Thank you for your continuing support of Impact, and feel free to contact us at www.impactalabama.org.  

Stephen F. Black

Founder/President.