The Simmons Memorial Foundation (SMF) needs your support. Consider these alarming statistics: According to the ACLU, 14 million students are in schools with police but no counselor, nurse, psychologist, or social worker. Nationwide, each school counselor serves an average of 480 students. In larger school districts, this ratio can rise to more than 700 students per counselor. Only 21 percent of public high schools have a dedicated college-counseling position, compared with 77 percent of private schools. These troubling statistics reveal a lack of quality-college counseling in the nation's public schools that derails many students as they transition between high school and college, especially the neediest students. SMF helps fill this void. Dedicated to "developing potential on the periphery," SMF provides educational support services to youth from vulnerable backgrounds. These services include free college consulting, mentoring, college visitations, standardized test preparation, and scholarships. For over two decades, SMF has helped more than 1000 high achieving students and awarded over 60 scholarships. Students once reluctant to apply to selective colleges are now being admitted to and graduating from some of the most prestigious colleges and universities in the nation including: Harvard University, Princeton University, Davidson College, Morehouse College, University of Pennsylvania, Spelman College, Wake Forest University, Wesleyan University, Swarthmore College, Duke University, Pomona College, University of North Carolina at Chapel-Hill, Bowdoin College, Howard University, The College of William & Mary, Oberlin College, Cornell University, Morehouse College, and many others.