An estimated 90 foster grandparent volunteers will serve between 15 to 40 hours per week serving at risk children

This Corporation for National and Community Service project grant award of $465,787.47 supports the AmeriCorps Seniors Foster Grandparent Program (FGP) at Bright Beginnings Children's Center. Approximately 90 foster grandparent volunteers will each serve 15-40 hours per week providing one-on-one and small group academic support to at-risk K-12 students. Volunteers will focus on developing reading, math, and developmental skills to promote classroom success and school readiness. The grant period is July 1, 2021 through June 30, 2022. Volunteers will receive monthly training to strengthen tutoring, social-emotional learning, and child development skills. This funding for volunteer placement at local schools aligns with the FGP's goals of engaging low-income seniors in service roles that meet community needs while providing a small stipend and other benefits.

Of this number at least 86 foster grandparents will be placed in outcome based assignments. Some of their activities will include working one on one reading, developing math skills, developmental skills, and overall mentoring to encourage positive classroom and academic success. The primary focus area of this project is K-12 success and school readiness. At the end of the three-year grant, our anticipated outcome is to make significant strides in K-12 education and school readiness by placing a minimum of 90 percent of unduplicated volunteers in the work plans which address these two areas. Every year, over 80% of the sites will report that the foster grandparent volunteer made a significant positive impact in the youth that they served. The volunteers placed in the K-12 educational academic success work plan, will work one on one, and in small groups to assist those children who need additional attention to math and reading skills. The activities the volunteers are too complete will be directed by the teachers through the assignment plans completed by the teacher and shared with the volunteers. The volunteers placed in the school readiness work plan will work one on one with pre-K students on activities directed by teachers through assignment plans shared with the volunteers. The teachers will then report in an end of the year survey the progress of the students served by a foster grandparent volunteer. During monthly training's, the volunteers will receive training to aide them in working with the students such as tutoring skills, mindfulness and education, child development, bullying, and many more topics. The cncs federal investment of $557,723 will be supplemented by at least $55,772 as the anticipated amount of non-federal resources once the waiver is lifted due to covid-19.