The team’s objective is to alleviate the stresses in the lives of battered women and at risk teens. As students from Colts Neck High School we have planned a service-learning project to improve their lives and the facilities they go to for help. We plan to work with Ocean Harbor House, 180-Turning Lives Around, and Collier Group Home, which are shelters and foundations for battered women in New Jersey. We hope to empower the women in the shelters to take pride in who they are and get them to possess more confidence and self-esteem. The team will visit Collier Group Home is in Red Bank, New Jersey. It is a residence for ten teenage girls who are unable to live in their own homes due to significant and long-standing personal or family problems. The Candidates are referred to the Group Home through the Division of Youth and Family Services (DYFS). Girls may also be identified as needing this service by schools, mental health centers, social service agencies, the courts and private practitioners. Following a successful intake interview, new residents are accepted into the program. The team will also visit 180-Turning Lives Around. This is a private, non-profit organization dedicated to ending domestic violence and sexual assault in our community. The program sets out to do the same things with its private organization that we have set out to accomplish with our service learning project this year. They have their own safe house and a transitional house for those who are looking for a place to live when trying to get their lives back together. By going to these homes and shelters we hope to understand the issues that these women face everyday. We then hope to promote awareness from our newly gained perspective. We will spread our new knowledge through newspaper articles, posters, and handouts. We want everyone to understand what these women go through, and how they can be helped. Abusive relationships are found everywhere and occur between people of all ages. In order to help these people we will make sure they have the knowledge they need to get help. The team plans to visit the American Bar Association Fidelity and Surety Law Committee’s mid-winter meeting. We plan to go to their Women’s Involvement Subcommittee networking meeting and breakfast. We will present our service learning project and collect donations. The Bar Association will be giving us all the unused shampoos and supplies from the New York Sheraton hotel for us to distribute among different battered women shelters. In addition we will be working with Ocean Harbor House to help raise awareness and fundraise for their programs. This organization works with battered women and children and has been very helpful with organizing events and helping us to understand abusive relationships and what needs to be done to help those who are affected. We will sell bracelets and ribbons to raise money for the local shelters and we will hold clothing and household item drives to collect the things these women and teens really need to turn their lives around. The team plans to meet with counselors and take advice on how to talk to these women and understand their situations. We hope to reach out to them and provide them with support. We are continuing to come up with new projects everyday and hope that in the end we will be able to plan a benefit to raise lots of money for the women in need. This event will take a lot of planning and money to be successful but in the end the local community will be more educated and willing to help solve this global issue. We need this grant to help us purchase needed supplies for all our projects to spread awareness and begin to raise funds for the benefit. The Race for Empowerment is a hard one but as hard working students of the Law and Public Service Learning Center at Colts Neck High School we will be able to help those in need with this very important race