Take Stock in Children will say a fond farewell to more than its graduating seniors this year, as longtime Marathon success coach Katrina Wiatt will retire after 12 years with the organization.
Originally serving as a member of the Monroe County Education Foundation board, Wiatt was approached to join the organization in 2010 by then-program manager Jim Hall as Take Stock prepared to undergo organizational changes. Upon receiving an Investing in Innovation (i3) grant, Take Stock was looking to evolve and turn its vision beyond just high school graduation and dropout prevention in order to focus on college readiness.
“My son had just graduated from high school,” said Wiatt. “I said, ‘Well, if it’s part-time and I can get health insurance, sure!’”
Working in Marathon, Wiatt is largely credited with developing the role of Monroe County’s Take Stock “success coaches.” As opposed to other areas, in which Take Stock coaches work from a single office and visit schools to work with program participants, the Keys’ school-based program has installed coaches at each of the island chain’s public high schools to manage recruitment, matching and monitoring of students and mentors.
According to her fellow coaches, Wiatt’s knowledge of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), her organizational skills and her detailed emails have become legend within Take Stock, to the point where she has become an unofficial mentor for those holding her same post in other schools.
“For me, she’s my go-to,” said Key West coach Lynne Casamayor. “If there’s something that I believe in, if I can get Katrina to believe with me, I’m good. She will back you if she believes in it, and she’ll go ahead of you to make it happen.”
“When I have any kind of issue or concern, I lean on her because she’s got the most knowledge out of our crew,” said Coral Shores coach Autumn Hager, noting that she often saves copies of Wiatt’s emails to students and mentors as templates for thorough and efficient communication. “I’ll call her and say, ‘Hey, I’ve got this going on.’ She’ll have an answer for me, and it’s always correct. She’ll tell you exactly how to make it happen.”
“We do a lot of investigating in student recruitment to make sure that they are truly economically eligible, and Katrina is our go-to person when we start looking through taxes and investigating to make sure that students are truthful in their applications. I consider myself pretty detail-oriented, and I’m nothing, a novice compared to Katrina when it comes to details,” said Take Stock executive director Chuck Licis, noting that whoever assumes Wiatt’s position has monumental shoes to fill. “I’d be happy with even 75% of what Katrina gave us,” he laughed.
Wiatt now intends to split her time between the Keys and her family’s cabin under construction in British Columbia. But she won’t be cutting ties with Take Stock completely, pledging her continued support as a volunteer student mentor.
“The most rewarding part of the program has been being able to keep in touch with those kids that came in, graduated high school, went to college and went into the work world, but are still in touch with me in a variety of different ways,” she said. “Some of them were kids that everything went totally successfully, and some of them were kids that it didn’t. They’ve made their way one way or another on different paths, but even if it was in a zigzag, they always say that the program was what helped them get to where they are.”
