EDUCATION
HELPING CHILDREN AND YOUTH ACHIEVE THEIR POTENTIAL
There are many indicators that will help United Ways determine if they truly have helped children and youth achieve their potential, if they have made an impact on education in their community. United Way sees education as a birth-to-21 continuum, since children are born learning and aren’t successfully launched into the world until they’re working or in college. Some measures can include how well prepared or "how ready" children are to succeed in school; reading proficiency by 4th grade; middle school success and on-time graduation rates; the percentage of youth in work or school by 21; or the extent to which youth are productive and engaged in their schools and in their communities.
Create excitement in the community about these children’s issues through United Way Day of Action activities. And, at the same time, move to community impact by connecting with existing community initiatives and focusing your activities to support those children and youth who are most challenged to be ready to learn and succeed in life.
Born Learning Trail
Build a Born Learning Trail and announce your intention to build one in every area of the city where children lack the tools they need to succeed - one per season, one per year - whatever makes sense for your United Way. Invite early childhood stakeholders and government officials to participate in building the trail or to attend a ribbon cutting and to bring their children or grandchildren to experience the trail. Help your volunteers become your advocates by getting them to pledge to bring a certain number of people to the trail, to help spread the word about its value, or commit to keeping the trail maintained. For more information about the Born Learning Trail and to order a kit that will make it even easier to build one, visit these websites:
Raising Reading Levels
Only 25% of fourth graders in the United States are reading at grade level currently, accelerating our drop-out crisis. Improving the reading levels of first-, second-, and/or third-graders in your community is key in improving high school graduation rates. United Ways can recruit, train, and place volunteer reading tutors to help kids learn to read so they can read to learn in later grades.
United Way Day of Action activities can include…
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Designate an “Every Child Reading Hour” where everyone reads with their children; libraries and museums have public reading groups; bookstores, coffee shops, and other public businesses offer discounts to people who come in to read; etc.
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Launch a “Stuff the Bus” effort that gathers donated books and culminates in the fall so that every child/classroom in a certain grade has a book to read
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Sign up summer program and/or academic year reading tutors so every daycare, classroom of a particular grade, or other inspiring measure has a reading tutor
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Renovate/clean-up public or school library so every child/school has a place to read and check-out books
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Send an electronic alert about importance of reading, asking recipients to become “Reading Advocates” by signing up to receive updates and committing to some action to help.
Additional resources include…
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First Book, a United Way national partner, is providing free books to disadvantaged children – 60 million so far in the United States and Canada.
www.firstbook.org
For additional information and ideas, read about United Way of Southeastern Michigan's Operation ABC program.
Recognize Volunteer Readers
Reach out to literacy and childcare groups to obtain names of their volunteers. Create a means to celebrate and recognize those individuals - through email, an advertisement in the newspaper, an insert in the utility bill - and include a call to action for more volunteers.
Early Reading and Pre-Reading Efforts
Bring the Imagination Library to your community. Children enrolled in the Dolly Parton Imagination Library receive a new, age-appropriate, hard-cover book at home each month until the age of five. The program is offered to families at no cost. In St. Cloud, Minnesota, Imagination Library is a partnership between United Way of Central Minnesota, Success By 6 and the Dollywood Foundation. It is funded locally by individual donations from parents and other community members, corporate gifts and special grants. A child can be sponsored for $35 per year. Last year, this United Way kicked off their first annual Llama Llama Read-A-Rama event where thousands of children in the St. Cloud Area stopped what they were doing to read. United Way of America has a national partnership with Imagination Library. Read more about the good work of the Imagination Library here http://online.unitedway.org/site/soe/cafe/index.cfm?PPID=4257.
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Raising A Reader is another helpful resource. It engages parents in “book cuddling” with their children from birth to five in “book cuddling” routines. One in three children entering kindergarten lacks basic pre-reading skills:
www.raisingareader.org.
Add Education to Playspaces with United Way and KaBOOM!
Learning can and should be taking place everywhere, all the time. Take a look at the simple and fun things you can do in your community parks, playgrounds and schools to keep kids learning by clicking here.
Book Reading to Inspire Community Service in Children
Established by the Metropolitan Atlanta Corporate Volunteer Council, the Carol D. Reiser Book Award is given annually to the children's book or books published the preceding year that most effectively inspires community service and volunteerism in children. Choose from this list of books and hold a public reading and volunteering day at the local library with parents and children.
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Anna Casey's Place in the World by Adrian Fogelin
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Markovers by Marcia by Claudia Mills
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The Giving Book by Ellen Sabin
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Boxes for Katje by Candace Fleming
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Ryan and Jimmy and the Well in Africa That Brought Them Together by Herb Shoveller
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Mother Teresa by Demi
Raising Reading Levels
Improve the reading levels of first- and second-graders in your community. Ten to fifteen percent of children who don't read at grade level by third grade are very likely to drop out of high school, and only two percent are likely to complete a college degree. United Ways can recruit and train volunteers and mobilize them in their community's classrooms. Corporations and other organizations can get involved by adopting a school and committing a certain number of employees to volunteer. For additional information and ideas, read about United Way of Southeastern Michigan's Operation ABC program.
Other Ideas for Promoting Education
- Launch a School Readiness Initiative. United Way of Greater Chattanooga has a successful initiative under way.
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Consider partnering with skills-based volunteers and/or with a group "outside your box" to achieve a common goal, especially organizations with an interest in helping children and youth achieve their potential. For example, Public Architecture is a 501c3 organization of architecture firms that have pledged to donate 1% of their time and resources. United Ways can partner with Public Architecture members to raise money to donate books to a school, with the architecture firm building new bookcases or even a new wing for the library. United Way can identify other supporters of children’s issues through sustained relationships with their corporate partners.
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