While the blog is on summer vacation, we’re sharing past posts about the many ways City Connects helps students thrive.
This week’s roundup looks at how our community partners help us connect students to the right services at the right time.
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Community Partners: City Connects and Big Brothers Big Sisters
July 20, 2017
To get the right services to the right child, City Connects relies on hundreds of community partners, from nonprofits and health centers to businesses and cultural organizations.
One of our longstanding community partners is Big Brothers Big Sisters of Massachusetts Bay.
Big Brothers provides mentors – or “Bigs” as the organization calls them – who serve as role models and friends for children (or “Littles”) in a one-on-one relationship.
The partnership between City Connects and Big Brothers strengthens this practice.
“We really work collaboratively,” Nora Leary explains. She’s Big Brothers’ Vice President for Program Services. “I think our goals are very similar: to help the kids in Boston Public Schools succeed, not just educationally, but also in all the other spheres of their life.”
This collaboration is informed by the whole class review that every City Connects coordinator does to look at the needs of each individual child. These reviews help coordinators get to know children and identify the ones would benefit from having a mentor. Coordinators then make the referral to Big Brother – increasing the number of Littles served – and they can share useful insights to help Big Brother make even stronger matches between Bigs and Littles.
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Community partnerships that spark innovative new programs
January 17, 2019
For City Connects Coordinators, sharing their schools’ needs with community partners makes it much easier for those partners to offer new services and programs for children.
One example is Risen Christ Catholic School in Minneapolis where there isn’t enough funding to run a summer school program. There is, however, a high demand for summer enrichment programs. These programs are important because Risen Christ is the only dual-language immersion Catholic school in Minnesota, and many of its students are learning English as a second language. As a result, many students need literacy and language support in both English and Spanish.
That’s why when summer comes, the school’s City Connects Coordinator, Lindsay O’Keefe, works with families to send students to Urban Ventures, a local nonprofit that supports kids from the cradle to college. Because the summer program is free and runs all day and all week, covering math, English, and science, as well as providing meals and field trips, it’s extremely popular.
What makes Urban Ventures’ program even more unique is that it became a catalyst for other new programs.
“They got to know our school community through the kids and me, and through our summer connection. But our kids hadn’t been able to attend their after-school program because our school gets out so late,” O’Keefe says.
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A Library, llamas, and City Connects
May 5, 2023
With one small card, families in Minneapolis can unlock a world of castles, llamas, and “crafternoons.” That’s why Maggie Longsdorf is on a mission to make sure that the families in her school have library cards.
“Any time we have a school event, I have a table out where there are always library card applications,” Longsdorf says. She’s the City Connects Coordinator at Risen Christ Catholic School in Minneapolis, Minn. “I tell families, I can have a library card for you in a week.”
It’s easy to forget how much libraries have to offer, Longsdorf says. But a library card is a passport to a world of new opportunities at nearby Hosmer Library, a building that looks like a small castle outside and holds tons of resources and opportunities inside.
Longsdorf says the three most popular things Risen Christ families do at Hosmer Library is borrow books, participate in the tutoring program, and join in summer activities.
“Having access to all those free books is great. And the library is also a great resource for families who are looking for extra academic support for their children outside of school,” Longsdorf adds. “Since the pandemic, a lot of students have been trying to catch up, and it has been difficult to find free academic interventions and support.”
