The Can-Do awoke this morning to find this email from Matt from Illinois. This is exactly what we are hoping to do with this blog: create a site where people can share ideas and introduce us to worthy programs that need assistance or can be replicated. Thanks, Matt.
You asked for suggestions of worthy organizations that are contributing to making the world a better place, which I take to mean their immediate community. (Scalability is key in order to have impact, I think.) My wife and I live in Oak Park, IL, and are supporters of the Oak Park Education Foundation. Check out site at oakparkeducationfoundation.org. Here's their brief description:
“The Oak Park Education Foundation believes in the power of collaboration between community and school to spark new interests, ignite innovative ideas, and engage children in new ways of perceiving and interacting with the world. Founded in 1989 by a coalition of parents, educators and community leaders, the Oak Park Education Foundation is a privately-funded, non-profit organization working in close partnership with District 97. Currently, the Oak Park Education Foundation implements 5 programs: science-based Global Village, Art Start, technology-based Vex Robotics, Architecture Adventure, and our newest endeavor, Geared Up. Our professional partners share their passion for learning while conducting hands-on projects with more than 3,000 students every year.”
In a low-key but high-impact way, OPEF's programs, which bring subject matter experts (engineers, artists, architects, scientists, etc.) into the classroom to collaborate with teachers on projects with the students, enrich the educational lives of many kids in the Oak Park public schools, grades K-8. It is often through these projects that the teachers and volunteer experts are able to get through to a particular student who might not be responding to conventional classroom teaching, but suddenly finds a very comfortable new home with the robotics class, or the architecture project, and gets inspired. OPEF is a true partnership between parents, volunteers, teachers, and the school district. It deepens the way children approach learning, as part of the world around them. OPEF is a model organization that could easily be replicated (and probably already is, for all I know) in many communities throughout the country. Feel free to post this message to your site (I don't know how -- not a frequent visitor to blog-doms), and if any of your readers would like to know more, the OPEF website has a more specific description of its programs, organization, and also contact information.
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