The sponsoring organization, east arkansas area agency on aging (eaaaa) is a private, non-profit corporation that was founded in 1978

The eaaaa is governed by a 13-member board of directors, in conjunction with an advisory council. Its mission is to provide leadership of aging issues on behalf of older persons in east arkansas, and to carry out a wide range of functions in planning, coordination, and service delivery such that older persons are assisted in leading independent, meaningful and dignified lives in their own homes and communities as long as possible. The foster grandparent program in north eastern arkansas has a long standing tradition rooted in strengthening our communities and fostering civic engagement through a commitment to community service. Its mission is twofold: first, to provide opportunities for older persons to give back to their communities, which creates a sense of usefulness and IT has been proven to improve health and longevity. Secondly, the program aims to provide one-on-one assistance to special and exceptional needs children helping them to improve in their needed areas of development. An estimated 28-30 FGP volunteers will serve. All foster grandparents will be placed in outcome based assignments; however, 19 will be placed in school readiness assignments such as head starts and pre-kindergartens, the remaining will be in k-12. Some of their activities will include tutoring, mentoring, reading, and classroom support. The primary focus area of this project is literacy. At the end of the three-year grant, we expect attendance to be above 95% and reading scores to improve for participating children. This will be measured by an impact/outcome form that will be filled out by the stations at the end of the school years. These volunteers serve at nine volunteer stations in six arkansas counties. 112 students benefit directly each academic year from one-on-one individualized attention from a foster grandparent volunteer. Countless others benefit from a smile or an encouraging word spoken from a grandparent in their school. Through the recently administered national association of foster grandparent director's survey, IT was determined that 75% of our volunteers feel that their participation in the program prevents isolation while 100% reported increased self-esteem and improved sense of well-being as well as the benefits of increased health, socialization, purpose and fulfillment.