The foster grandparent program of greater siouxland, sponsored by the rotary club of rock valley foundation, INC. (RVRFGP), requests $357,500 funding for the eight-county service area including…

The foster grandparent program of greater siouxland, sponsored by the rotary club of rock valley foundation, INC. (RVRFGP), requests $357,500 funding for the eight-county service area including lyon, sioux, O'brien, osceola, monona, dickinson, plymouth, and woodbury counties in iowa. Federal funds from the corporation for national & community service (CNCS) provide dollars for personnel expenses, operating costs, and direct benefits to low-income senior volunteers as described in part II-budget detail. An amount in excess of 80% of federal funding has been used for direct volunteer expenses. Funding allows an estimated 70 foster grandparent volunteers to provide almost 70,000 hours to assist approximately 1800 children in 35+ non-profit agencies, including schools, head starts, day cares throughout the RVRFGP service area. The CNCS federal investment of $357,500 will be supplemented by non-federal resources. The primary focus area of this project is to provide opportunities for low-income foster grandparent volunteers to serve children in need through education. Foster grandparent volunteers focus on assisting children with school readiness and K-12 success by providing one-on-one and small group activities to help struggling children. Examples of activities include reading to children; listening to children read; checking their reading comprehension; assisting with math comprehension; and assisting with games and activities to enhance pre-reading skills, vocabulary, speech development, mathematics and social skills. Foster grandparent volunteers also act as positive role models, provide support and encouragement to the children, and add diversity by providing an inter-generational aspect to the programs often by sharing their life experiences relating to the studies. At the end of the three-year grant, the children/students served will show increased school readiness in terms of social and/or emotional development, gains in literacy skills for school readiness, and improved academic performance in literacy and/or math.