Above and Beyond Students was founded in 2001 by its current Executive Director, Carmen Blackmon. As a child Ms. Blackmon stated she grew up watching her mother nurture and care for other children. From this experience she learned, we are responsible for all children, not just the ones that we give birth to.

While volunteering at her children’s school Mrs. Blackmon saw too many children not on grade level, not turning in homework, and low self-esteem. This raised many unsettling questions from her, and caused her to challenge herself regarding her purpose in life and what could she do to make a difference. She strongly believes God placed her in this environment to open her eyes to the needs surrounding low income, inner city students, and the need to provide additional educational opportunities for children.

From this, Mrs Blackmon felt and unshakable burden and call to start an after school tutoring and mentoring program. Thus, started the journey of Above and Beyond Students (ABS). In 2001 ABS opened its doors to 35 students from the West side of Charlotte, NC. ABS has now grown to serve over 1000 students and families across the state of NC since 2001.

In keeping with her strong tradition and program motto “Pursuing Excellence, Exceeding Potential”, Mrs. Blackmon along with her staff have successfully helped students and their families achieve success. She knows that in life we all are always in pursuit of something. No matter how large or small the pursuit, it should be done with excellence.

As you continue to visit our website you find that we offer an array of services for our students and their family. We invite you to not only visit the website, but we welcome you to pay a personal visit to one of our afterschool sites. You will see first hand how we “Pursue Excellence, Exceed Potential”.

ABS is recognized by the IRS as a 501C3 non-profit organization. For 19 years ABS has offered free afterschool care to all our attendees. We are able to do this by strategically aligning our program with quality community resources, Federal, State and local funding.

We hope you enjoy your tour of our program and services. We are glad you took an interest in our program and students.