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| United Way President Debbie Bresette |
At a well-attended news conference, we were thrilled to announce that, thanks to United Way Capital Area, 16 Austin-area non-profit agencies, will receive $1 million to fund 22 programs that are part of UWCA's Middle School Matters youth education initiative. The news conference in the beautiful school library at Webb was filled with students and adults who care about them — representatives of United Way and the partner agencies and businesses.
UWCA and its nonprofit partners will deliver a wide-range of support services at the middle schools, including mentoring, tutoring, behavioral health, parent education, and quality after-school programs to students at the three schools. Applied Materials, Inc., The Applied Materials Foundation, and IBM also are focusing a part of their philanthropic efforts in these areas to ensure middle school students are successful.
UWCA’s plan includes careful integration of the programs at each school, with the goal of setting up students for success and making each campus more conducive to learning. Expected results include increasing attendance, test scores and parental involvement and decreasing behavioral referrals.
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| I love talking to middle schoolers. |
I told those in attendance that, academically-speaking, middle school can make or break a student's future success. I advised the students there with us to establish the foundation for their future career successes now, by committing to challenging themselves and pursuing advanced placement classes.
The UWCA's goal for Middle School Matters is to increase on-time high school graduation rates from today's 81 percent for Central Texas students, to 95 percent by 2015. Additionally, the initiative is also expected to increase student attendance, test scores results, and parental involvement, and to decrease behavior referrals.
In collaboration with businesses, the impact becomes far greater. Contributions from Applied Materials, Inc. and The Applied Materials Foundation focus on keeping middle school students on-track academically by strengthening core academics, providing mentors, and supporting quality after-school programs in fine arts and the environment in select AISD and Manor ISD schools. IBM’s efforts include in-kind contributions as Reading Companion, a Web-enabled program that facilitates word fluency, recognition and pronunciation through voice recognition software. Other IBM contributions to help bridge the language divide include Traducelo Ahora!, an interactive reading program and translation technology which enables bidirectional translations (English-Spanish and Spanish-English) of Web sites and e-mails. Volunteers from these companies have given thousands of hours to UWCA’s volunteer program over the years.
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| UWCA's Board Chairman Kevin Cole. |
I'm always impressed with the work of the United Way. Youth education is just one of the focus areas that will share $3.4 million in UWCA’s Community Investment Grants. Funding will also be directed toward early childhood education, income and health initiatives. More than 175 community volunteers reviewed and made recommendations on which programs would receive the competitive grants. UWCA awarded grants to 69 programs representing 49 nonprofit partners, including 18 new and all current UWCA partners.
Thank you, United Way Capital Area and all these partners who believe that middle schools matter!
Following the announcement, Webb students and volunteers ventured outside to plant flowering shrubs and food-bearing crops. This beautification project is an example of helping students learn to care for their community environment, and develop leadership skills. Thank you, principal Rey Garcia and counselor Katherine Flores who coordinated the gardening project.
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| A beautiful day for students to garden and learn to take care of their environment. |
