A couple moves into west Louisville and starts a boarding school to take at-risk kids off the streets and give them a place to live and learn.

After a WHAS11 news story aired, the school got a huge outpouring of support from the community.

“We’ve had people call to say they've wanted to volunteer, we’ve had people call to say wanted to contribute,” says Robert Blair of the West End School.

You could call the West End School one of the city's biggest secrets

But after our story aired Tuesday night about the school that’s helping under privileged kids -- for free -- word started to hit the street.

Within hours this morning the school had about a dozen offers from people that had seen the story and wanted to help

“I think anytime the community sees kids in need they are very generous and today precipitated by that story, we we’ve had a wonderful response.”

Robert Blair and his wife started the school three years ago, but not without help.

Kentucky is one of only two states in the country that doesn’t have charter schools. That means all the money for their school has to be raised -- they don’t get any public support

The West End School has eight full time students now, but as the school grows so will the need for community support.

“We have 8 boys in a 4 bedroom house at the moment,” says Blair. “As soon as we build the dorm we’ll be able to expand to the next phase probably 2-3 dozen kids.”

Nearly 7000 of JCPS students are homeless

The hope for the West End School is that by next year they'll be able to take on more boys

“The community has helped us in all kinds of ways,” says Blair. “And no you can’t do this without the community support. The other part is that it is wonderful for the community get their arms around a project like this to give the kids a hand up.”

At about $15,000 per student a year, Blair and his wife say they're ready to take on as many students as they can afford.

“The number of boys served is limited to that level of support, but so far they been wonderful.”

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Earlier coverage:

Louisville, Ky. - It’s being called an experiment in Louisville’s west end.  Yet this experiment isn’t done in a lab, it’s being done in a boarding school.  If it’s successful it may provide an outlet for inner city kids looking to escape a life of crime. 

The vision for the West End School comes from a guy named Robert Blair.  He was the headmaster at Kentucky County Day for eleven years, and he understands better than most, how much value a good education has.

“There’s a different set of expectations among our boys,” Blair tells WHAS11’s Andy Treinen.

Robert Blair and his wife Debbie are working every day to change those expectations.  The lesson starts when the eight students who live with the Blair’s in their west side homes first wake up in the morning.

Their school day is spent at what was built as the Virginia Colored School in 1923.  It’s scheduled to open as the West End Boarding School in May of next year.

Robert and Debbie are the schools only full time staff, while a part time faculty also helps with teaching the students.

The lessons are about much more than just reading, writing and arithmetic, and at no cost to the students.

“When I first got here I thought I wasn’t going to really like it living with a whole bunch of boys and no girls or nothing, but I got used to it and now I’m having fun and Mr. and Mrs. Blair, they’re just nice people,” one of the students tells Andy Treinen.

Robert and Debbie have very strong convictions.  They are very intelligent people who wouldn’t have done this if they didn’t think it was going to work.

Web story produced by Joann Dickson