Our Education Programs
We want kids to soar at every age. So we connect them with the support they need to thrive from preschool through college and into their careers.
This includes ensuring that children and youth are ready for kindergarten, have success in school, and graduate high school ready for college and career. Specific strategies and approaches:
- Ensuring that children 0-5 have the supports they need to promote early development, and successful transition to kindergarten (e.g., home visiting, early literacy, preschool access)
- Providing literacy supports to ensure students learn to read by the end of third grade
- Providing learning and enrichment supports for students, especially those academically at-risk (e.g., afterschool and summer enrichment programs)
- Engaging parents and families to ensure they have the resources, tools and information needed to support their child’s development and school success
- Partnering with K-12 schools and community-based organizations to provide whole-school, wrap around supports (community schools, Strive)
- Supporting youth to effectively transition to college and career (e.g., mentoring, internships, tutoring, college trips, career exploration, soft skills development, leadership development)
- Also includes specific efforts to close persistent gaps and disparities in educational access and outcomes
Check out our Youth Opportunity programs:
Ready. Set. READ! is a program that brings young learners up to reading proficiency by building home libraries with the hope to foster a love for learning. Over the past three years, we have proudly distributed more than 35,000 books at various United Way and community events. Our success would not be possible without the invaluable support of our volunteers and community partners.
The Think Make Create Program (TMC) is designed to empower youth by providing hands-on, interactive experiences that ignite their creativity and curiosity in STEAM subjects. Through project-based learning, participants engage in a variety of activities that promote critical thinking, collaboration, and problem-solving skills. Each TMC Lab serves as a dynamic environment where kids can experiment with different materials, tools, and techniques to bring their ideas to life. By encouraging exploration and innovation, the TMC Program not only enhances educational outcomes but also inspires confidence and passion in the next generation of thinkers and creators.
As part of a grant awarded to us by the Idaho Out-of-School network, our TMC Lab trailer features over 200 mobile projects designed to serve our seven-county region in Eastern Idaho, which includes Lemhi, Clark, Fremont, Jefferson, Madison, Teton, and Bonneville counties. This trailer is utilized by our nonprofit partners, schools, and community groups, allowing us to reach populations of students K-6th that typically lack access to STEAM opportunities at school or home.
SOAR is an after-school program that stands for Student Opportunities in Activities and Recreation. We’ve brought SOAR to 2 schools and specific aspects of SOAR to 14 other schools throughout eastern Idaho. SOAR offers students an opportunity to participate in a no-cost after-school program. The goals of SOAR are to foster a quality out of school learning environment, build skills that are relevant to future success, provide a positive adult role model and interactions, and to introduce different learning topics to encourage curiosity.
Kindergarten Bootcamp (KBC) is a two-week program that introduces children to their first experience in school. KBC gives incoming students an inside look at what school will feel like, familiarizes them with daily routines, and teaches numerical, language, and social-emotional skills. All this to help them feel confident and ready to learn. Program runs according to funding availability.