Friends' Programs

SUMMA, the Syracuse University Mentor/Mentee Alliance, is a one-to-one mentoring group between students from the school and young successful SU alumni who live and work in the New York City area. Over the past 15 years, SUMMA has grown into overwhelming success, with between 80-85 mentoring pairs currently enrolled. The pairs are required to complete public service projects each year, and SUMMA organizes an average of ten group events, trips, meals, and parties each year.

The Friends are proud to co-sponsor Summer College for High School Students, a program which provides the best and the brightest Leadership students with the opportunity to attend Syracuse University's Summer College for High School students. The students spend six weeks on campus, taking two accredited college level courses. The Friends raise money to pay for tuition, room and board, books and travel for these students.

Laptop Program - Since the first graduating class in 1997, The Friends have provided any Leadership student who is accepted to, and chooses to matriculate at Syracuse University with a top-of-the-line laptop computer. These computers, which are fully accessorized with all the software needed at SU, are presented to the HSLAPS students at a ceremony on campus when they register.

Each Spring, The Friends sponsor a two-day, one-night trip to the Syracuse University campus for interested HSLAPS seniors. In what is the first taste of college life for most of these students, they attend classes, meet with former Leadership students, SU professors and get a real sense of college life away from home.

The Friends, in response to the needs of the school as outlined by the principal, have made such one-time gifts to the High School for Leadership & Public Service as an interactive video conference system, a security system for the school library, Princeton Review courses for the senior class, musical instruments, and basketball uniforms.

2009 HSLAPS Student Trip to SU