AFTER SCHOOL PROGRAMS:
A Shared Vision for a Better Tomorrow
Challenge: Millions of children are left unsupervised for hours after school, because their parents work much later than the time their children get out of school.
Children left alone frequently become the victims and perpetrators of crime.
Lack of safety, academic assistance, and emotional support for our children, result in (among many things):
Low test scores, High drop out rates, and Increased crime and teenage pregnancy rates.
Government funding for education is being continually slashed.
A crime-ridden overpopulated nation is a bleak vision for any nation.
Fortunately, we can take control of our journey and navigate towards a brighter future.
Across the nation, communities are increasingly joining together to put respect, teamwork, and love into their communities.
After-School Programs are the product of this extraordinary action.
The benefits of After-School Programs are increasingly well documented: They build the capacity of children, youth and families to succeed. They keep children safe, strengthen academic performance, improve social and emotional skills, and offer free child care to low-income families.
In a larger sense, they are among the most costeffective means for spearheading community economic development and social change, reconnecting neighborhoods with schools and building authentic community partnerships.
SUSTAINABILITY IS A LOCAL RESPONSIBILITY
Positive, long-term changes in local communities ultimately depends on the extent to which cities, counties, school districts, community foundations and local businesses take a proactive approach in ensuring their sustainability. While most after school programs rely heavily, if not exclusively, on state and federal funding, those communities that are experiencing the greatest success understand that the sustainability of after school programs is primarily a local responsibility.
Investigate opportunities to participate in After-School programs in your area. Volunteer to be a guest speaker in a classroom. Share any talent, knowledge, special skills with others. Donate surplus resources to programs. Take your friendly Pekinese to a classroom and talk about dogs. Tutor a child in basic math. Teach about healthy foods... Sing a song...
If you do not have an after-school program in your area, and your community in need of one for whatever reason, you are not alone. Get in touch with those who have made a resounding impact on their communities and are actively making the world a better place.
Pioneers of modern American society- Dr. Andria Fletcher, PhD., Laurie Isham (Woman of the Year, awarded by the California State Legislature) and many others are helping to make the world a better place through their relentless action and selfless efforts.
Andria Fletcher
Program Director Sacramento START
6005 Folsom Boulevard
Sacramento, California 95819
Phone: 916.277.6115. Fax: 916.277.6074
Dr. Fletcher helped create an exemplary programs that can provide a template for your own community's After-School Program.
Share the Vision for a Better Future.
Kestrin has worked for years on the development of her own community's After-School Program (The HEART Program of Tulare County) as a teacher, grant writer, administrative assistant, and general volunteer (from facilitating seminars to stuffing fruit baskets).
She continues to help generate awareness and get people involved and excited about After-School Programs. She will soon volunteer in classrooms of L.A. as "The Cello Lady", and, as always, works with HEART whenever possible.
One of Kestrin's goals is to establish the Kestrin Pantera After-School Fund by 2009, and begin to contribute financially on a larger scale, so that After-School energy and resources can focus on expansion and development, rather the endless search to secure funding.
(Her path, when not volunteering, is to create commercially successful, artistic, and engaging works for film, television, and music for mass inspiration.)