“Here in Massachusetts, Endicott College’s Keys to Degrees program – which has an 80 percent employment rate among graduates and has spawned almost a dozen similar programs at colleges around the nation – holds real promise to help mothers and their children achieve their dreams together. It’s the right thing and the smart thing to do.”
“Since we began in 2005, 98 percent of our scholars have graduated from four-year colleges within six years, compared with only 11 percent of low-income, first-generation students nationally, according to a 2008 Pell study. Our scholars exemplify how earlier intervention, personal advising and academic support are essential to finding, gaining admittance to and succeeding in a best-fit college.”
“Lava Mae, founded by entrepreneur Doniece Sandoval, proposes to transform old Muni buses into mobile showers and toilets for use by homeless residents. The company has already secured the rights to at least one Muni bus and has contacted the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission about using water hydrants. The bus is one of 40 that Muni plans to junk in the coming years in favor of newer vehicles.”
“Over three years, the Digital Learning Cooperative will create and offer 10 college preparatory courses for students, and develop a business model to continue and expand the program beyond the term of the grant. The 48 districts involved in this project will identify talented teachers in math, science and world languages, and provide them with the support and training to design and deliver high-quality coursework. Similarly, the districts will pool their students to create a critical mass of candidates to take advantage of these highly demanding, specialized classes.”
“A partnership between the nonprofit Monarch School Project and the San Diego County Office of Education, the unusual educational program serves students from kindergarten through high school who are affected by homelessness. San Diego is one of just four counties nationwide to be given permission from the federal government to run public schools specifically for homeless students.”
“Today, the farm has 150 volunteers; in 2012, it produced 5,000 pounds of food. Instead of donating the all the food, Emmons also set up farmers markets on church lawns on the westside to connect one-on-one with residents. All the produce is sold at very low cost to make it affordable in low-income neighborhoods.”
“Across the country in communities like Newark, the early college high school model is being lauded as a way to provide low-income students with a road map to and through college. According to the most recent figures from the National Center for Education Statistics, 68 percent of all high school graduates make it to a two- or four-year institution, but only 52 percent of low-income students do the same.”
“The agencies collectively help by providing microloans to beginning farmers and businesses, teaching farmers how to improve productivity and energy efficiency, and developing new construction projects in rural areas. Now, these agencies will combine forces to meet the needs of the rural communities.”
“On Monday, the organization and the University of Texas' Ray Marshall Center for the Study of Human Resources plan to release a report that maps out a strategy for the Workforce Potential Project. The goal - to help 30,000 of Austin's lower-wage workers complete certificate or degree programs and land jobs that pay at least $18 an hour.”
“The Circles Campaign is a transformational approach that partners volunteers and community leaders with underserved families. With the help and friendship of these allies, each family sets and achieves goals based on their own needs.”
“The Working Connections program offers a way to make 3-to-23 education a reality while providing affordable care to low-income children so their parents can work or look for a job. It allows us to provide critical early-learning services and helps keep Washington citizens employed at the same time.”
“Through Providence Talks, researchers and policy makers are likely to learn much more about whether pulling this language lever can really help level the academic playing field. At the same time, however, by asking scores of regular parents to opt into massive, data-driven recording and analysis of all the language their children hear in their first few years, and then encouraging them to change the personal matter of how they talk to their kids as a result, they are launching a project of unprecedented scope and audacity.”
“The near-peer influence of those recent college graduates who shepherd high school and college students to a four-year degree works: So far, 58 percent of students who've participated in the program in its initial location of Minneapolis-St. Paul have earned bachelor's degrees.”
“If poor people could get a rigorous, reflection-based education instead of merely being trained to perform poverty-level jobs, he wrote in his book ‘Riches for the Poor,’ they would become full participants in public life, free to pursue opportunities they couldn't have otherwise imagined. Expanding the course to Harlan academy was his final project.”
“The new app will use a global-positioning system to automatically record locations. The social worker could enter other information, including the number of homeless people at the location and whether there are children, pregnant women or ill people. That information can be shared with other social-service agencies.”
“If the film wins top honors Sunday, Mr. D’Arrigo hopes it will be easier for him to make the case to grant makers and wealthy donors about the power of the arts to help needy kids. Already the film has prompted a $10,000 donation from a couple in New York who were moved by the film, but Mr. D’Arrigo has bigger ambitions as he runs a campaign to raise nearly $5 million for his group.”
“Rauch said he knows the concept may at first sound unpalatable, maybe even objectionable, but he's convinced that his Urban Food Initiative has merit. The idea is to take food ‘waste’ — perishables at, near, or past their expiration date that supermarkets throw out daily — and turn it into healthy meals priced like a McDonald's Big Mac. Rauch compares the nonprofit's mission to the work of Goodwill, which resells donated clothing at affordable prices.”
“Larson is the founder of the Homeless Children’s Playtime Project, which offers the record-breaking number of children packed into the shelter — about 600 of them — a place to have fun. Two places, actually. For the older kids, there’s a large recreation room on the second floor filled with glitter pens, construction paper, toys and books. And for the younger kids, another room with play kitchens, bouncy seats, puzzles is on the first floor.”
“Shane Burroughs, 39, spends his days patrolling the streets and looking for them. He is a one-man street team for Bucks County's Synergy Project, an initiative to help young people, 21 and under, who are homeless.”
“Homeless children from Seminole County received freebooks through a giveaway on Saturday, sponsored by the Florida Kiwanis and organized through a local program called ‘Just 1 Book.’”
“Boston is fortunate to have so many cultural institutions that offer enrichment for children. But steep admissions prices — which can easily soar to $50 or more for a family outing — render many museums and zoos out of reach for local families. So praise is due to the Boston Children’s Museum, which has launched a program offering $2 admission to visitors who show an electronic welfare-benefits card.”
“Called Pathways in Technology Early College High School, or P-TECH, the school preps students for tech jobs at IBM with starting salaries of about $40,000. The first of its kind in America, the grade 9-14 school employs a curriculum mapped backward from workplace needs at IBM to help low-income kids beat a dreary pile of statistics that show students from poor neighborhoods — especially black males — face long odds for finishing high school and getting into college.”
“Buying a new pair of running shoes in Illinois could cost a quarter more if a measure to tax gym shoes gets traction at the Capitol. The idea behind the 25-cent shoe tax is to pump more money into programs that help high-school dropouts from low-income homes get jobs in the construction trades or get back on track to attend college.”
“Patients who can't pay and don't have ID can't sign up for Medicaid, Medicare or Social Security disability. Their hospital bills become part of the growing problem of ‘uncompensated care’ — more than $130 million last year for Florida Hospital alone — which is why Orlando Health already has donated to IDignity's mission.”
“Freshbox Catering, a for-profit company owned by Lutheran Social Services of Central Ohio, hires homeless men and women who have been staying in one of the Faith Mission shelters. They work at the catering company and receive the training and certification they need to move on to other jobs in the restaurant and food-service industry. Profits go back into Lutheran Social Services' nonprofit programs to help the homeless.”
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