Grinnell AmeriCorps Partnership announces local host sites

Published:
November 05, 2015

The Grinnell AmeriCorps Partnership today announced the host sites participating in community-wide capacity building and addressing specific Grinnell-area education priorities.  

Numerous community organizations applied to become host sites for the service members being selected to advance Grinnell's Campaign for Grade Level Reading and support the local Graduate Skills Gap initiative. Service members will be assigned to the various sites.   

The Grinnell AmeriCorps Partnership is a community-wide effort to advance Grinnell's Campaign for Grade Level Reading and support the Graduate Skills Gap initiative in Grinnell, Iowa. Focusing on these initiatives, AmeriCorps members will be placed in local community organizations to support work in each of the five key focus areas of the Campaign for Grade Level Reading: 

  • Prevention of summer learning loss, 

  • Prevention of chronic absence from school, 

  • Making sure youngsters are ready for school, 

  • Making sure students are healthy and read to learn, and 

  • Encouraging parent and family engagement. 

In addition, AmeriCorps members will provide core "backbone" infrastructure, such as community and volunteer engagement to advance early childhood literacy and assist with the community's Graduate Skills Gap pilot programming. 

The host sites and the projects they will focus on are: 

  • Drake Community Library — Summer learning 

  • Fairview Elementary School — School attendance and school readiness at the Voluntary Preschool Program  

  • Grinnell Regional Medical Center — Healthy readers 

  • Poweshiek Iowa Development working with Grinnell Mutual — Graduate Skills Gap initiative 

  • Grinnell Chamber of Commerce — Family and community engagement 

  • Greater Poweshiek Community Foundation — Volunteer infrastructure 

  • Grinnell Area Arts Council working with Grinnell Community Daycare and Preschool and Galaxy Youth Program — After-school enrichment 

"We are thrilled with the host sites and are excited about the community support for the program," said Monica Chavez-Silva, assistant vice president of community enhancement and engagement at Grinnell College. "We are pleased to report that the program is moving full steam ahead with the filling of several of the positions, and we are looking forward to getting those members on board by the end of November." 

For the remaining unfilled positions, a plan is underway to convert those positions to part-time opportunities, based on feedback that this would make it easier for more people to participate. Details about the revised positions will be made available in the coming weeks, once the official plan has been submitted and approved by the Iowa Commission on Volunteer Service, the granting agency.  

For more information about the part-time positions, please contact the Office of Community Enhancement and Engagement, (641) 269-3900. 

 

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