Nashville Freedom School Partnership
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615-359-1656
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104 Fitzpatrick Court
Nashville, TN 37214
Organization Details

Programs

Budget
$10,500.00
Description
We recruit, interview, and deploy hire 10 high-school youth as Junior Interns, who assist our summer literacy teachers in class, help with food service and art-and-reading buddies for our scholars, and learn how to mentor our younger scholars. Theses junior interns, supported via a partnership with West End United Methodist Church, are all low-income, at-risk teens recruited from North Nashville. This internship is their first paying job and Freedom School offers weekly classes on money management, conflict resolution, resume writing and job interviewing, in addition to a $1,000 stipend for the summer. The goal is to prepare hard-to-hire youth for the workforce AND to instill in them a desire to serve as positive role model for young siblings and other younger children in their communities.
Program Areas Served
None
Description
Freedom Schools (six-week summer program for children in grades K-8, with Integrated Reading Curriculum, mentoring and tutoring by trained college interns, field trips, community involvement, recreation and enrichment activities).
Program Areas Served
None
Description
Regularly scheduled information, networking and problem-solving sessions to support parents and guardians in more effective advocacy for their children, their schools and and their communities.
Program Areas Served
None
Budget
$2,500.00
Description
An annual, daylong reunion for Freedom School scholars, parents and staff, with craft stations, music and competitions based on the principle children learned in the previous summer. We also check on the academic and personal progress of children and their families. We build this event around the principles of the Kwanzaa celebration in December.
Program Areas Served
None

CEO/Executive Director/Board Comments

Our biggest challenge is fund-raising, and we are improving the caliber and energy of those recruited for our board of directors, by engaging two new members in 2018 with skill, the interest, the time and the contacts to help us attract new corporate and private donors to give gifts of $25,000 for the next five years. One of these persons raised $25,000 in 2018, and the other raised $5,000 from private donors. These represented the largest amount raised by individual board members. We also engaged a contract grant writer who helped us raise $25,000, in new funds. For the second year, Nashville Freedom Schools expanded our reach to high school students through our a Junior Internship, in which youth in grades 10-12 in high school work for our summer program to gain job skills, receive 'life-skill' training in money management, nonviolent conflict transformation, teamwork, and healthy dating relationship. In summer 2018, we employed 9 Junior Interns, who received a stipend of $1,000 each, thanks to funding from and partnership with West End United Methodist Church. West End also matched each youth intern with an adult mentor, and one of our board members developed and guided junior interns through a mindfulness and restorative practices curriculum to help them better cope with anger, conflict, and decision making.