EDWARDSBURG — After a student graduates from high school, they might move to Los Angeles, New York or even South Korea to chase their dream. They might want to be an actor, an investment banker or teach English to children in a foreign county.

Any school district is proud when its graduates go on to follow their hearts and make their lives and the lives of others better. Yet, it’s often difficult for a district to keep tabs on its thousands of graduates, especially the ones who move far away.

That is why Edwardsburg Public Schools has started a social media initiative with the hope that they will learn more about the successes of their former students.

“We just like to recognize them and share with our community that our graduates are not only local, but that they are global,” said Kimberly Slack, who manages social media for EPS. “We’d love to know what our graduates are doing, even within the United States. Even if they are local and successful. We’d just like to inspire our students.”

So far, the initiative has gone by the name of “Alumni Heroes” and “Alumni Successes,” but both are serving the district’s mission of finding successful graduates and sharing the story with the Edwardsburg community.

“I know of alumni that are teaching in China, Japan and the Czech Republic, so it’s very cool that they’ve been able to follow their dreams and are loving what they’re doing,” Slack said. “So if it inspires our little Eddies, that’s what we like them to do — let them know they can dream as big as they’d like and that we’re here to help them achieve their goals.”

Learning about the successes of former students will help the school district see how some of the rigorous academic opportunities that they offer are impacting their students after they graduate.

“We want to show that Edwardsburg alumni are global and making a difference in the world,” Slack said. “We have international accreditation through the AdvancEd and NCAA commission and improvement team. We offer our students many different options such as dual enrollment through Southwestern Michigan College and we have dual enrollment through IUSB.”

Edwardsburg students can also attend classes at the Berrien Math and Science Center and a few other area academic organizations.

“We’re trying to give our students as many opportunities to explore the areas that they are interested in,” Slack said.

Thus far, EPS has struggled to receive nominations for the social media initiative, but they have still been able to highlight a few Edwardsburg graduates.

“I know a couple of alums who have done some spectacular things, so we posted about them, but we’d love to know what others are doing and the community is proud to be an Eddie,” Slack said. “We’re proud of being Eddies and we’d like to celebrate accomplishments of our graduates.”

For more information regarding this social media initiative, visit the EPS Facebook page.