Summer Camp Programs Fight Learning Loss for Club kids

GREAT FUTURES
News about the impact of your generosity
Summer Camp Programs Fight
Learning Loss for Club kids
Most of us have memories of summer being happy and carefree times
with oppor tunities for enrichment at summer camps, with family, or trips
to museums and libraries. Unfor tunately, some youth don’t have these
oppor tunities when school ends, and they struggle with basic needs such
as healthy meals, adult supervision and access to educational oppor tunities.
This summer, BGCKC’s summer camps and Club activities will continue to
address summer learning loss. Our plan addresses the emotional and social
needs of a child in addition to academics. This includes meals, educational
field trips and positive interaction with caring adults. We are also par tnering
with school districts and other youth-based community organizations to help
train our staff and ensure academic needs are being met.
S U M M E R C A M P P ROG R AM S , CO N T I N U ED O N PAG E 3
Mark your calendars
for LunchBreak! 2016
SPRING 2016
TUESDAY, APRIL 19
Brain Gain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Get ready for the most inspiring midday meal you’ll ever enjoy!
Our LunchBreak! fundraiser takes place on Tuesday, April 19, at the
Sheraton Seattle. Join more than 1,000 other Boys & Girls Clubs
suppor ters in making a real difference for Club kids and our community.
Register online at positiveplace.org/events.
Donor Spotlight. . . . . . . . . . 4
Healthy Lifestyles. . . . . . . . . 2
Youth of the Year. . . . . . . . . 5
Closing the Math Gap . . . . . 6
Your Support is
Creating Great Futures
for Our Youth
Welcome to our spring edition of Great Futures!
As a suppor ter of Boys & Girls Clubs of King
County or a Club member parent, you make
an invaluable impact by helping us create great
futures for more than 17,000 children and teens every year. This issue focuses
on summer learning loss and our countywide Great Futures initiative.
n Our
lead story is about summer learning loss and what BGCKC is doing
to combat it. More than half of the achievement gap between lower- and
higher-income youth can be explained by unequal access to summer learning
oppor tunities. At BGCKC we are combating summer learning loss by
providing programs such as Brain Gain along with healthy meals, educational
field trips, and interactions with caring adults.
nOur
Youth of the Year program highlights the extraordinary achievements
of our teen members. Our 2016 winner showed a strong commitment to
community service and academic achievement. Congratulations Lesly P.!
n BGCKC
is embarking on a countywide initiative with four central goals we
believe best position us to fulfill our mission for kids. By the end of FY18
we aim to:
n
Increase Club members’ frequency of attendance.
n
Increase the number of Club members par ticipating in Summer Brain
Gain and other summer learning loss prevention activities.
n
Increase the number of formal par tnerships our Clubs and child care
sites have with schools and other community-based youth development
organizations.
n
Launch data sharing par tnerships with every public school district our
Clubs and child care sites serve.
Thanks to your generosity, Club kids have a safe, fun and academically
stimulating place to go after school and during the summer. It is imperative that
we do even more to elevate the critical role that out-of-school time plays in a
child’s future success. That means engaging people like you – along with schools,
government, business and other public, private and nonprofit par tners – to
ensure that together, we can open our doors to every child who needs us.
Thank you for your confidence, your loyalty and your suppor t.
Sincerely,
Calvin L. Lyons
President/CEO
Healthy
Lifestyles
Thank you to UnitedHealthcare
for providing a generous grant to
support healthy lifestyles. Funds
will help to create and expand
community gardens and nutritioneducation programming, purchase
new fitness supplies and equipment,
and provide about 60,000 hot and
healthy meals for Club members
over the next year. Funding from
UnitedHealthcare was generated
through its participation in CBS
EcoMedia’s WellnessAd program.
EcoMedia and UnitedHealthcare
helped expand healthy lifestyles
programming for over 4,200 kids
at six BGCKC Clubs.
“We’re grateful to UnitedHealthcare
and Boys & Girls Clubs of King
County for the collaborative effort
that’s bringing community gardening
and new opportunities for physical
activity and healthy eating to youth
in the Seattle area,” said Doug
Bowes, CEO, UnitedHealthcare
Community Plan of Washington,
which also provides free Boys &
Girls Club memberships for people
enrolled in its Medicaid health plan.
This is a great example of what one
company can do to help local youth.
2
GREAT FUTURES
What is “Brain Gain”?
Summer Brain Gain is an educational program meant to slow and
stop the effects of summer learning loss on BGCKC members. It’s
comprised of one-week modules with fun, themed learning activities
for elementary school, middle school and high school students. Each
module takes a project-based learning approach: youth engage in
a process of learning through discovery, creative expression, group
work and a final project.
Rotary Club members were excited to par ticipate in Brain Gain’s
“Team Me” module where they learned about themselves and what
makes each Club member special and unique.
Redmond/Sammamish Club members looked at food labels, studied
their meanings, and presented their findings to groups explaining how
each item contributed to their health.
“I saw a significant impact in looking at the Brain Gain pre- and posttests,” said Stacy Kain, Regional Director, Early Learning & Child CareSouth Region. “The post tests revealed that kids felt more valued and
got a lot out of the program socially and emotionally.”
Club members at the Joel E. Smilow Clubhouse & Teen Center at
Rainier Vista studied ecosystems and explored the outdoors during
their Teen Brain Gain Summer Camp.
Lawton Elementary Boys & Girls
Club members enjoyed learning
about sea animals and their habitats.
“Through Brain Gain and programs
like it, we are giving kids a chance
to be exposed to curriculum during
the summer that is slightly higher
than their current skill level, which
prepares them for the fall,” said Jamie
Heil, Kirkland Club Executive Director.
n In
Summer 2015, almost 1,600
youth across King County Clubs par ticipated in Brain Gain
n Par ticipants
ranged in grades K-10, and represented
26 BGCKC sites
n BGCKC’s
goal is to have 2,100 par ticipate in Summer 2016
n BGCKC
youth who par ticipated in pre-program and postprogram literacy assessments showed steady or improved scores
over the summer on average
n BGCKC
3rd grade readers on average had no dip in literacy
scores over the summer. This is significant because the third grade
reading benchmark has been linked to likelihood of high school
graduation
Summer Camp Programs
CO N T I N U ED F RO M PAG E 1
BGCKC programs
like Brain Gain,
STEM and Lego
Robotics keep
kids learning and
having fun while
doing it.
We evaluated
the impact of
our summer
Brain Gain
program using pre- and post-program
assessments. A majority of Club members
showed no decrease in assessment scores
over the summer. Moreover, post-program
assessment scores show that our summer
Brain Gain par ticipants scored above
grade-level reading benchmarks,
on average, across all grades.
“Addressing summer learning loss is vitally
impor tant for Boys & Girls Clubs, especially
because it dispropor tionately impacts
youth in low-income communities,” said
Evan McKittrick, BGCKC Vice President
of Quality, Impact & Par tnerships.
Research shows that in the summer,
low-income youth lose more than two
months’ wor th of reading skills while their
middle-class peers make slight gains. More
than half of the achievement gap between
lower- and higher-income youth can be
explained by unequal access to summer
learning oppor tunities.
This achievement gap over the elementary
grades has consequences that reverberate
throughout their schooling and can
impact whether a child ultimately earns
a high school diploma and continues on
to college. Repor ts show that students
who regularly attend high quality summer
learning programs can reverse the
summer learning loss trend.
For more information about
BGCKC summer camps, visit:
www.positiveplace.org/camp.
S P RI NG 2016
3
Improving Graduation Rates Drive
the Brettlers to Support Club Kids
Dan and Cindy Brettler have
been suppor ting the Boys & Girls
Clubs of King County (BGCKC)
for over 17 years. Most recently
the Brettlers have committed a
substantial gift toward the Great
Futures movement that will
suppor t programming to curb
summer learning loss. By serving as
table captains at events, providing
funds for matching initiatives, and
contributing auction items, they
have also inspired many others to
give to BGCKC.
close to Dan’s hear t is improving
graduation rates.
“It’s hard to think about the kids who
go home after school to an empty
house,” said Cindy. “Boys & Girls
Clubs offer a safe place for all kids
to go, regardless of their financial
situation, where they have positive
role models.”
The Brettlers care deeply about
providing oppor tunities of every
kind to Club kids. One cause
“In the early years it was about
keeping kids off the streets and
giving them a place to go after
school,” said Dan, CEO of Car
Toys. “Today Boys & Girls Clubs can
impact graduation rates and lower
the number of youth that get lost
in the system. I would like kids to
have more access to college. It’s a
travesty in our community with our
wealth that such a high percentage
of kids don’t graduate.”
Dan has served as a long time
board member for BGCKC and
is a champion of suppor ting
youth development. He currently
serves on the United Way of King
County board and is the former
co-chair of the Committee to End
Homelessness in King County. His
wife Cindy has volunteered at
Seattle Children’s Hospital for
17 years and has been on their
board for six. Cindy and Dan are
both Managing Directors of the
Brettler Family Foundation.
“Suppor ting BGCKC is a good
investment because they establish
a clear vision for what they want to
accomplish, they measure results
and hold themselves accountable,”
said Dan.
Thanks to the generous support of our community, Boys & Girls Clubs of King County is developing
confident and caring youth motivated to succeed and to change the world. Since 1943, local Club kids have
learned to be leaders while advancing their academics, gaining career and life skills, and keeping fit and healthy.
The mission of Boys
& Girls Clubs of
King County is to
enable all young
people, especially
those who need
us most, to reach
their full potential
as productive, caring,
responsible citizens.
In 12 Clubs, two teen centers, and 27 early learning and child care programs
across King County, we server more than 17,000 preschoolers, children and teens
every year. As the third-largest Boys & Girls Club organization in the United States,
we’ve grown and thrived thanks to our community’s suppor t.
What can you do to help? Take a tour of your local Boys & Girls Club and
connect with the staff. Have fun volunteering at a Club or an event. You can also
sponsor a Club kid’s educational field trip by donating $50, sponsor a week of
summer camp for $750, or donate at another level that is meaningful to you.
Today about 40 percent of our suppor t comes from private philanthropy.
Because of your suppor t, Boys & Girls Clubs are developing the scientists and
educators, ar tists and innovators, and visionaries and philanthropists who will
lead our community for generations. We are deeply grateful for your generosity.
Learn more at positiveplace.org or call 206.436.1820.
G R E AT FU T U R E S
4
Lesly P. is Boys & Girls
Clubs of King County
2016 Youth of the Year
Nearly 360 business leaders and youth advocates joined at
the Seattle Marriott Waterfront Hotel on Thursday, February 4,
2016 for Boys & Girls Clubs of King County’s premiere youth
recognition event: Youth of the Year. Lesly P., a member of the
Joel E. Smilow Clubhouse & Teen Center at Rainier Vista (aka
SRV) and a junior at Franklin High School, was named the winner.
“The judges had wonderful candidates to choose from
and they all exhibited leadership, strong character and
determination,” said Calvin L. Lyons, President/CEO of Boys
& Girls Clubs of King County. “I would like to congratulate
Lesly. He shines as an example to all Club members.”
In total, 9 exceptional teens from Clubs across the county
competed for the title. Each candidate was judged on the
following: leadership, service, their respective essays, life
goals, values, moral character, academic success, poise and
public speaking.
Lesly walked away with the winning title and a $2,000 education
scholarship. Says 17-year-old Lesly, “The Boys & Girls Club
helped me to have hope when it was hard to find any. I was
inspired daily to accomplish greater things. The Club helped me
with my first job and provided support and guidance.”
Lesly and SRV Teen
Director Kelvin
celebrate at the Youth
of the Year Luncheon
“This young man is hardworking and focused,” said Kelvin
Washington, SRV Teen Director. “His involvement in Keystone,
volunteerism, basketball, and mentorship inspired us all.”
Lesly will go on to compete in the Washington State Boys &
Girls Clubs Youth of the Year competition on March 30th & 31st
with hopes of advancing to the Pacific regional event and then
the national competition.
A member of the SRV Club for 7 years, Lesly is proud of his
youth leadership training and ability to maintain his academic
status. He also secured and maintained internships with the
Summer Youth Employment Program and the Club Jr. Staff
Program. He has completed over 225 hours of volunteer service
at the Club.
Read all about Youth of the Year candidates:
http://bit.ly/kcyoy16
Youth of the Year was made possible by Presenting Sponsor,
Microsoft. Event sponsors include: Fred Meyer, Macy’s, Princess
Cruises, Paul & Stacey Ravetta and Walmart.
S P RI NG 2016
5
Nonprofit Org.
U.S. Postage
PAID
603 Stewar t St. #300
Seattle WA 98101
Seattle, WA
Permit No. 8482
206.436.1800
suppor [email protected]
positiveplace.org
eMode & BGCKC Partner
to Close the Math Gap
BGCKC is partnering with eMODE Learning Foundation,
an innovative local math education nonprofit, on a Work,
Learn & Earn program.
The summer program aims to close the math achievement gap
that persists among rising 7th and 8th graders in Rainier Valley,
thereby boosting their understanding so they become prepared
and eager to pursue higher math education.
Work, Learn & Earn will focus on math instruction blended with
reading and writing. A significant barrier faced by our youth
is the high level of literacy required by current math curricula.
Students must be able to read and interpret math problems,
as well as explain their solutions.
To address the problem, the Joel E. Smilow Clubhouse & Teen
Center at Rainier Vista (SRV) will work with eMode Learning
Foundation to immerse 30 qualified students in a rigorous
math camp that will prepare them for success. BGCKC will
identify students through the school year programming
currently underway at the Club. The summer
program is an expansion from the current eMode
programming at SRV. Our school par tners regularly
refer students to us for additional help and suppor t,
and we will make sure students know of the new
summer learning oppor tunity.
Math assessments throughout the summer will be
conducted and student’s grades will be tracked the
following year to ensure academic outcomes are met.
“Learning math can be real spirited fun,” said Norman
Alston, eMode Executive Director, “but math is not
a spectator spor t and only truly absorbed when we
engage all of the students’ senses while learning.”