Who doesn’t want to live in a more vibrant community? We all want to benefit from a better economy, but it doesn’t just happen. That’s why our foundation is committed to enhancing education and career pathways in order to improve our community. We are focused on three initiatives that have had a positive impact by accomplishing the following:
SCHOOLS OF EXCELLENCE INITIATIVE
- Conducted a needs assessment in the Centralia School District.
- Established the Career & College Readiness Committee.
- Established Powerful Teaching & Learning (The Learning Walks).
- Purchased 275 Chromebooks and Naviance career and college readiness software.
- Enhanced partnerships with Centralia College for career and college readiness.
- Added two college and career counselors at middle and high schools.
- Added a new Teaching and Learning Facilitator to plan, organize, and facilitate a sustainable program of professional development and productive communications inside the District and the schools.
- Created a set of key performance indicators to track student progress and outcomes.
CAREER PATHWAYS INITIATIVE
- Establishing partnerships with the trades industries and creating awareness of career opportunities.
- Helping prepare our students for jobs that exist in our region.
- Assisting Centralia College’s Virtual Reality Mobile Career Demonstration Lab by bringing new career partnerships to the program.
- Providing Mobile Demonstration Lab access to everyone in the community (not only middle and high school students), will help everyone who needs Career Pathways opportunities to secure a better future.
EARLY LEARNING INITIATIVE
- Only 3 out of 10 entering Lewis County schools are “Kindergarten Ready”. Providing early learning access will improve this statistic and the future for kids that are not Kindergarten Ready and their families.
- The leadership of our Board is partnering with foundations and organizations to bring early learning opportunities for over 500 families who need free or sliding scale fee-based early learning programs.
- Researching and bringing a “best practice” approach for providing access while creating alignment with school districts and work that is conducted by the BERC Group in Centralia, Chehalis and Centralia College.
- Coordinating with Centralia College and High Schools to provide Work Internships for Education Students will reduce the operating cost of providing early learning programs.
- We are conducting fundraising which will allow every $1 invested in early learning to immediately bring $10 back into our local economy.
MAKE A GIFT THAT GIVES BACK
In this season of giving, we hope you will join us and support our mission with your generous gift. Philanthropic investment is the fastest way to unimaginable possibilities in our community.
From all of us, we wish you and your family happy holidays!
