ORANGE BEACH, Ala. – The Coastal Baldwin Education Enrichment Foundation and the Alabama Gulf Coast Chamber of Commerce invited local businesses to “See for Yourself” day at Gulf Shores High School on May 4.

And even a little rain couldn’t dampen the spirit.

“It went fantastic,” Baldwin County School Board President Angie Swiger said. “It started out a little slow. It was raining in the morning but we were hoping to have a good turnout and we did. We had a great business turnout and we were very, very excited.”

Ed Rodriguez, president and CEO of the chamber, suggested his group’s month First Friday Forum be conducted at the high school to be used as a platform for CBEE to make it’s Learning for Life presentation to local businesses.

“Overall, it was a great day,” Rodriguez said. “Combined with the momentum of the First Friday Forum held at Gulf Shores High School that morning, the take-away message was that the business community in Coastal Baldwin County is dead-serious about the Learning For Life Initiative and what it means to our future.”

Part of that plan includes eight Career Academies at Gulf Shores High School and Swiger’s presentation gave those businesses in attendance insight on how they can be involved.

“The day went just as we would have expected it to,” she said. “We had a lot of interest in the businesses. The businesses were very excited to see what we were doing. “

Academies planned for this fall include Health Academy, Business and Law, Architecture and Construction, Hospitality and Tourism, Engineering, Fine Arts and Communications, Business and Finance and IT-technology.

“At each table, after the presentation, we had eight tables set up, one for each academy,” Swiger said. “Each table had a teacher sponsor that was there to talk about each academy and the businesses had an opportunity to visit the tables of their choice and we had a signup sheet for businesses that were interested in being a partner for that particular academy.

“We had a very good response on the signups. As a matter of fact we already have a couple of meetings set with potential sponsors.”

An almost immediate interest was shown by South Baldwin Regional Hospital.

“We’re meeting with the hospital today,” Gulf Shores Principal Ernie Rosado said Tuesday. “We’re going to take it to the next level for our kids.”

A few days later Rosado was still beaming over the turnout and the interest in the new programs being pursued in Pleasure Island schools.

“That was outstanding,” he said. “We had over 100 folks here. And the business folks, owners and employees, all got to stop by all the academies and its full speed ahead.”

On the technology front, money is still being raised to outfit all seventh graders at Gulf Shores Middle School with MacBook computers.

“We still need funding for about 40 Macs at the seventh grade level in order for every child to have a MacBook,” Swiger said. “We’re working real hard on that.”

A boost came in the form of the Learning for Life golf tournament which was also May 4 at Gulf Shores Golf Club. There were 18 participating teams of four golfers each and more than $6,000 was raised for CBEE’s various projects at the event.

The proceeds were raised from entry fees and a raffle. Bill Flanagan won two tickets for the Hangout Festival in the drawing.

In Orange Beach organizers have been trying to raise enough money to equip sixth graders with the MacBooks.

“Orange Beach Elementary is working diligently and I believe they have already raised close to $30,000 for sixth-grade Macs,” Swiger said. “We’re going to work toward a class set.

“They have about 75 students coming into the sixth grade next year. It’s our goal of course to provide a Mac for every sixth grader so that those kids aren’t coming over to the middle school the following year, they’re not behind on the technology aspect.”