|
|
|
MEMBER PROFILE
still a class act
Janice Dowdy, retired classroom assistant, Baltimore City
I joined Experience Corps because: I love working with children. They're caring, and they make you laugh. They come in, and if something is wrong, they throw their arms around you. When I heard about Experience Corps, I decided to go in for an interview, then training, and quicker than quick I was at Guilford Elementary.
I like to tell the story about: A book fair we had not too long ago. The theme was "rainforest," and I wore a hat covered with leaves and little butterflies. The children loved it, and it motivated them to come. I wore the hat for a week, and they would come in just to see it.
I know I'm making a difference when: I put in the effort with a child and it pays off. You may not be able to tell right away, but kids are very smart. I’ve seen children who work slowly or need to be taught in a different way, but all children can learn. It just takes patience, understanding, and a willingness to stick with it. Most of all, it takes time.
I'm sticking with Experience Corps because: This program benefits not just kids, but the members as well. We get up, get out, and do things we otherwise wouldn't do. In my wildest dreams, I never expected I would be so active and involved at this point in my life. Experience Corps works.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ten years ago this month, my friend and mentor Harris Wofford asked to come work with him at the Corporation for National Service. In addition to my new day job, Harris asked me to help organize a summit involving then-President Clinton and all the living ex-Presidents to focus national attention on the critical needs of young people. Harris can be a very persuasive fellow, and soon I found myself working day and night on what would become The Summit on America’s Future.
The Summit was a big success, and led to the birth of America’s Promise, a nonprofit created to carry on its work. General Colin Powell became the group’s founding board chair and spokesperson.
From its inception, America’s Promise has been organized around Five Promises that are essential conditions of success for children: 1) caring adults, 2) safe places and constructive use of time, 3) a healthy start and healthy development, 4) an effective education, and 5) the opportunity make a difference through helping others.
So, 10 years later, where are we in delivering on those promises? Well, the news is not encouraging. According to a new America’s Promise report, only 31% of kids in the U.S. have four or five of the Five Promises, 48% of kids in America have two or three of the Promises, and 21% have zero or one of the Promises. The outcomes are predictable – those with four or five Promises do very well; those with zero or one of the Promises do not.
The America’s Promise report brought home to me once again the urgency of the work that Experience Corps members are doing. In presenting the report, Peter Benson of the Search Institute said that, "Relationships are the magic of human development." I’ve heard this idea so many times in so many different words from Experience Corps members.
The secret of our success goes beyond tutoring and depends on the relationship between the Experience Corps member and the child. In the parlance of America’s Promise, Experience Corps provides a caring adult who helps to create a safe place and who holds high expectations for an effective education.
The America’s Promise report made me proud of the work Experience Corps members are doing on the frontlines, and at the same time impatient that we and others aren’t doing more. What is happening to disadvantaged kids is like a slow-moving natural disaster. As time passes, the intensity of the disaster builds and the consequences grow. As individuals, communities, and as a nation, we need to respond smartly, strongly...and soon.
Warm best wishes,
John S. Gomperts
jgomperts@experiencecorps.org
|
|
 |
|
Civic Ventures/Experience Corps Win Fast Company’s
"Social Capitalist Award"
Fast Company magazine named Civic Ventures, with its signature programs Experience Corps and The Purpose Prize, a winner of its 2007 "Social Capitalist Award" in the December/January issue of the magazine. Of the 43 winners – which include City Year, Citizen Schools, Jumpstart, Heifer International, Teach for America, DonorsChoose, the Grameen Foundation USA, and Hands On Network – Civic Ventures is the only winner focused on the baby boom generation. "Where others see the high costs of an aging society, Civic Ventures acts in new and creative ways to uncover the value of experience in a society with so many unmet needs," says Mark Vamos, editor of Fast Company.
Read more »
Experience Corps Philadelphia Receives $500,000 State Grant
In front of an audience full of Experience Corps members – along with the second, third and fourth grade students they serve – at Shawmont Elementary School in Philadelphia, state Representative Dwight Evans presented Experience Corps Philadelphia Director Rob Tietze with a very big check. The state grant of $500,000 recognizes the impact Experience Corps has on student performance and comes from the Pennsylvania legislature’s Appropriations Committee, which Evans chairs. "It is said that a society should be judged based on how it treats its elderly, its young, and its most vulnerable," Evans told the crowd. "If this is the case, then Experience Corps stands as a beacon of hope and a perfect model of how to best serve all three at once."
Read more »
Research Round-up
Three new studies illustrate the need for Experience Corps – and many other programs like it.
- Value. A government report finds that children who achieve a college degree earn roughly $23,000 a year more than those who have only a high school diploma.
- Achievement Gap. A new report from The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation evaluates how individual states are faring in educating low-income and minority students. In sum, "The achievement results are bleak." Basing findings primarily on scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the Foundation finds that, "The average state grade is D; three states flunked, and none earned better than D+... Were the same scale applied to white students, the national average would be a B."
- Mental exercise. The Wall Street Journal reports on a new study published in The Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences that calls aerobic exercise the surest way to maintain mental acuity during the aging process. Older adults who exercised for three months "had the brain volumes of people three years younger."
"What if we turned the life cycle upside down?" That’s the question Washington Post columnist Abigail Trafford proposes in a recent column: What if, she asks, Social Security was provided not to older adults but to people between the ages of 20 and 40, giving them support as they raised their families? "Young parents could supplement their Social Security check with part-time work, community service and continuing education so that they would gain skills and experience in preparation for full-time work," she suggests, adding that this would lead to the "prime earning years" – ages 40 to 75. Next would come the "national service years," where adults 75 and older would work to improve their communities through programs that offered flexible schedules and a monthly stipend. Trafford argues that "the solution to the coming financial crisis is not just about postponing the age of traditional retirement. It is about reorganizing work at all ages."
Recommended Reading
About Experience Corps
Experience Corps, an award-winning program, engages people over 55 in meeting
society's greatest challenges. Today, in 19
cities across the country, 2,000 Experience Corps members tutor and mentor elementary
school students struggling to learn to read. Independent research shows that
Experience Corps boosts student academic performance, helps schools and youth-serving
organizations become more successful, and enhances the well-being of the older
adults in the process.
Learn more about Experience Corps in these cities:
Baltimore City,
Beaumont, TX,
Boston, MA,
Cleveland,
Evansville, IN,
Grand Rapids,
Greater New Haven,
Marin County,
Minneapolis,
New York City,
Oakland,
Philadelphia,
Port Arthur, TX,
Portland, OR,
Revere, MA,
San Francisco,
St. Paul,
Tempe,
Washington, DC.
Questions or comments? Send an email to info@experiencecorps.org
2120 L St., NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC 20037
Copyright © 2012 Experience Corps. All rights reserved.
To subscribe to this newsletter, click here.
|
