Dots rising

Nineteen at-risk Sacramento youth, ages 8 to 15, graduated from the no-cost Tiger Woods Foundation program “Start Something” at Sacramento’s Tanzanite Community Park on June 9. Before family and friends, the local kids celebrated finishing a 12-week curriculum to improve their life skills—serving others, developing character and exploring careers. They were nurtured by Kimberly Biggs, a Sacramento parent whose teen son was injured in a youth-violence incident last summer. That spurred her to reach out to neighborhood kids in an attempt to prevent and reduce future violence. To this end in September 2006, Biggs began a nonprofit youth group called Connecting the Dots with Aretha Colston of the Bay Area.

One local grad is Alexis Stone, 14, who is awaiting word on her grant application to the Woods Foundation. She wants to attend a camp to learn horse training. Other grads, with the help of local merchants, are testing the waters of commerce with the Dots, their start-up T-shirt company.

Biggs and 10 “essential” community volunteers upon whom she depends plan to begin a new Start Something program later this year. For more information, visit www.connectingthedotsonline.org.