In 1990 President George H. W. Bush, challenged the nation to improve education by establishing a goals oriented program called, Education 2000. To support that challenge then Governor Zell Miller convened an Education Conference to encourage Georgians to find ways of achieving those goals in their own communities.

A group of four leading educational and community leaders attended the conference and became energized to form a group in the North Fulton Area which later was incorporated into a 501(c)(3) in 1993 called Greater North Fulton Education 2000. The original four were:

• Dr. Janet Forbes (Fulton County School Board Member)

• Sally Fitzgerald (Education Policy and Finance expert, 
    Citizen Lobbyist for League of Women Voters and Georgia PTA)

• Karen Weaver (Fulton County School Board Member)

• Carolyn Axt (a leading community and educational leader)

They worked extensively with then State Senator Sallie Newbill. At that time a specific grass roots driven project was developed to meet the goals of "Education 2000".

This group later partnered with Great North Fulton Chamber of Commerce and served as its' Education Committee, still as a stand-alone non profit. When the Chamber re-organized, the non profit group continued independently and has continued to this day serving our community with programs/projects to improve education in our community under the name of Community Education Force which then became Sandy Springs Education Force.

In its 15+ years of bringing together education, community, business, and government leaders to address educational needs we have initiated many programs:

• Best Kids: providing an after-school program for youngsters "on the brink" (now offered by the YMCA and re-named Prime Time)

• Learning Begins at Home: assisting parents to better prepare pre-school children for learning experiences

• Science Force: inspiring students to become involved in science through "hands on" classroom demonstrations

• Project Soar: exposing students to workforce experiences

• Project Lead: helping high school students develop leadership and decision-making skills

• Conversations: offering productive, meaningful, and supervised after-school activities and weekend activities for high school students

And, its contributions have been acknowledge with these awards:

• Friend of Education Award (Fulton County Schools)

• Partnership of the Year (GA Assoc. of Partners in Education, Inc.)

• Excellence in School Business Partnerships (GA Dept of Education)

• Gold Award of Excellence (G.S.P.R.A.)

• National Honorable Mention for Excellence in Community Collaboration (Community Collaboration for Children & Youth)