advocate

Staff opening at
Spokane County United Way:

Community Engagement VISTA

Thank You for Supporting our Community

Hundreds of United Way supporters gathered to celebrate the results of the 600 campaigns conducted this year in local businesses and organizations. Campaign chair Greg Seibly, President of Sterling Bank, thanked everyone for giving, speaking up and volunteering to improve individual lives and strengthen our community for everyone.

Spokane County Cradle to Career network being formed

With the vision of “Every child cared for, confident and competent- from cradle to career,” the Spokane Cradle-to-Career Network (C2C) has been in the making for over a year now, with Spokane County United Way serving as the backbone entity. Cradle-to-Career is an effort that views education as a journey that is much more inclusive than just what happens in the classroom. Education as a lifelong journey that begins even before a child sets foot into the classroom and continues long past a cap and gown commencement. This work is modeled upon similar networks springing up across the country modeled on the “Strive Partnership” in Cincinnati. Spokane Cradle-to-Career is supporting the effort of building a data-driven, results-oriented alignment of community resources towards the common goal of educational attainment for all our children. read more

New United Way investments

The United Way Board of Directors recently approved $665,000 in new two-year funding for five local organizations and two community collaborations, and awarded two one- time capacity grants to support mentoring programs.

These new investments support United Way’s ongoing efforts to engage new partners, enhance community capacity and focus resources to support children and youth success from cradle to career.

New Organizational Grants:

Blueprints for Learning – to provide professional development for staff at 82 local child care programs to improve quality and ensure that children are ready for kindergarten.
Communities in Schools – to connect 350 high-risk students in the Spokane and Cheney School Districts with a volunteer mentor throughout the school year.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (MLK) FAME Program –to enhance the capacity of this after-school program to assist with homework and provide social and emotional support services to children who attend Grant, Sheridan, Franklin and Roosevelt elementary schools.
Salish School –to support dual-language learning in Salish and English for young children and their teen age mentors with a focus on language arts excellence for all.
Odyssey Youth Center – to provide leadership development and peer support to high school students establishing Gay Straight Alliances in local high schools to ensure that environments are welcoming to all.

New Collaborative Grants:

Growing Hope – is a collaboration of Project Hope, Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, The Community School and Whitworth University that uses community gardens in the West Central neighborhood to build job skills, support healthy nutrition and enable high school students to earn school credit for project-based learning .
Youth REACH – is a partnership between YFA Connections, Team Child and VOA Crosswalk to restore a street outreach program to disconnected youth in downtown Spokane, and connect them with resources that can help them deal with their challenges.

New Capacity Building grants:

West Valley School District – to enable Centennial Middle School to implement a research-based program to improve transitions into middle school, with a special focus on supporting the success of high risk students through summer activities, mentoring, service learning and family engagement.
Gonzaga University- to purchase a software data management and reporting system to support the mentoring programs of the Center for Community Action and Service Learning in twelve local elementary and middle schools.
Funds for these new investments come from United Way donors and funds to expand community capacity from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

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