Define for Mine

Restoration n.  the process of bringing an object back to its original state; the process of restoring something

Since the beginning of my UrbanFUTURE experience; the word restoration, has been used to describe what our schools deserve, what our children will benefit from, and what we, the cast and crew of UrbanFUTURE strive for on a daily basis.  It wasn’t until a few months ago, that we were challenged to contemplate…”What does restoration look like at your school?” This question seems innocent and straight to the point, right? Wrong! It wasn’t until that very moment that I realized that restoration is relative, and what feels like, looks like, and tastes like restoration at one school may not be entirely true for another.  Below you can find students, parents, mentors, that have contributed to defining restoration for Meramec Elementary!

Ruth King (Meramec 2^nd grade teacher), allows UrbanFUTURE students into her classroom to provide “Story Time” and set s aside time for open floor dialogue between UF fifth grade readers and their second grade listeners!

Elizaebeth M. (Meramec Parent of Shontevia), supports her student and UrbanFUTURE by maintaining regular contact with teachers and school staff!  

Shontevia (Meramec 5th grader), made a choice to focus hard on her studies, and has brought her Science grade up from a C to a B!

Terrell (Meramec 5^th grader), has 100% UF attendance, and has worked diligently to bring his Math grade up from a C to a B!

Orlando F. (Meramec Parent of Terrell ), has shown a great deal of support for UF by attending all parent meetings, and maintaining weekly contact with teachers and tutors!

Ryan, Tina (Meramec Parent of T. Ryan), has donated her time and money to support the students of UrbanFUTURE!

Allen, Mya (Meramec Secretary), has shown tremendous daily support for UF students, UF parents, and UF staff, and has volunteered her time after work hours to assist with UF programming!

Tearra (Meramec 5^th grader), made the choice to refine her reading and comprehension skills by providing “Story Time” to second graders!

Isaiah Melendez (Meramec Math Tutor), made and shows his commitment to Meramec students as well as UrbanFUTURE; not only by his one hour weekly commitment, but also by coming in to tutor small groups during his free time!

Oughton, Nick (Meramec Mentor), has shown great commitment and support by maintaining regular contact with parents, UF staff, and teachers!

Nola Lee (Meramec Principal), pushes UrbanFUTURE students and parents to acknowledge and reach their full potential!

A BIG thank you (to those mentioned and not mentioned)...thank you for giving Meramec Restoration its own unique feel…you make the journey of defining fun!

Nearing Our Volunteer Goal

We are so excited to report that we have a total of 450 volunteers so far that have been tutoring and mentoring our UrbanFUTURE students!   Our goal is 500!  Just 50 more to go...We have fulfilled our current tutor needs and are looking for more mentors to complete our need this year 2010-2011!  This week, the Community Outreach Department has been attending various volunteer fairs including Harris-Stowe State University and Webster University High School.  Our volunteers include a diverse population including high school students, University students, retiree's, lawyers, doctors, teachers, community members, corporate sponsors, and many others.  Thank you to our current volunteers for spreading the word and referring their friends and relatives to become UrbanFUTURE volunteers!  

What UrbanFUTURE is Thankful For This Year

With the Thanksgiving holiday upon us, this is a great time to reflect on the past year and share with others what we are thankful for and how much we appreciate them. In spirit of the holiday, here is what we at UrbanFUTURE are thankful for.

• Outstanding volunteer tutors and mentors who spend an hour each week working with urban youth. They play a vital role in Restoration and the success of UrbanFUTURE.
  
• Dedicated teachers who work with UrbanFUTURE staff on a daily basis to help each student succeed academically and grow as a person. Teachers provide us with some of the greatest insight to each student we work with.
• Enthusiastic donors who ensure that Restoration will continue to have an impact for urban youth in St. Louis and share our vision of eliminating the academic achievement gap in urban schools.
• Strong partners who collaborate with us to maximize resources and impact in the lives of students on a daily basis. Our partners include Youth In Need, YMCA, St. Louis Public Schools & Human Development Corporation.
• Corporate sponsors who invest their time, money and leadership in UrbanFUTURE. Our sponsors include Walgreens, Wells Fargo Advisors, Maritz, Kaldi's Coffee and Ameren.
• Engaged parent leaders who are taking charge of their child's education and working to ensure they succeed academically and in life. Our parents are a vital cog in Restoration and are great advocates for UrbanFUTURE.
• Hard-working and dedicated students who show up every day to learn and grow. It's amazing how inspiring our students can be for all of us.
  

We know Restoration only succeeds because of everyone involved and can't thank you all enough for your continued commitment and dedication to helping urban youth see and believe in their possibilities!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Get Involved in Volunteer Recruiting Process

Did you know that UrbanFUTURE will be providing services to 3 times as many students this year? We are excited to be helping more students see and believe in their possibilities, however, we are in need of even more volunteers than ever. This year, we have gotten off to a strong start with nearly 150 active volunteer tutors and mentors already meeting with students at Fanning Middle School and Mann Elementary, and we will be starting at 4 additional schools over the next several weeks.

Our volunteers this year have come from a variety of sources. You may have seen our flyers at Walgreens, or our posters at your favorite coffee shop. We may have met you at one of the many community activities we participate in such as the Festival of Nations, or an outdoor concert. What you may not know, is that while these activities help us meet many of our volunteers, over 60% of our volunteers come from organizations and institutions. It seems that once a member of a company, club, church or school starts working with our students, they share their experience and before you know it we have several volunteers participating from that same location. Maritz, Wells Fargo Advisors, and Ameren are all wonderful examples of companies that support us with volunteerism and funding, while St. Louis University shows how mobilizing the student body can provide much needed tutors for our students. 

In saying this, think about groups in which you belong. Whether it be your place of employment, church, fraternity or sorority, or professional organization, we would love for them to hear our story. Our current volunteers are our best advocates, but we are willing to come to your organization to provide a presentation. The presentation could be as brief or as detailed as your time allows, and we are even willing to provide on-site volunteer training. UrbanFUTURE is excited to have the opportunity to serve more families, schools, and communities, and looks forward to even more volunteer participation.

Fanning Falcons are Flying

UrbanFUTURE at Fanning Middle School is in full swing!  With 62 students fully enrolled in Restoration, afternoons are filled with a buzz that starts off with grade specific homework help.  Students are already taking charge of completing missed assignments, as well as staying on top of current assignments, and are eager to improve or maintain the grades that they received on their progress reports at the end of last week.  

Following homework help, students are engaged in great enrichment classes through the EXPLORE! program.  They are cooking with St. Louis University nutrition students, sculpting with COCA, rooting for the football team through cheerleading, battling in a game of wits during Chess Club, and establishing a student government among other activities. WOW! Enrichment programming runs Monday through Friday so that our students have engaging alternatives to going home every day of the week.  As the EXPLORE! program manager, Jocelyn Peters has gone above and beyond to engage our students in a fun and meaningful way.

The fun doesn't stop there!  Students are also excited about the tutors and mentors that they have the opportunity to work with during the last hour of programming through the IMPACT and INSPIRE programs.  Tutors have begun delving into the curriculum with students in both math and communication arts and already the students are soaring!  Though the academic component can be difficult, students and tutors have been working hard to improve in basic skills and in challenging reading materials.  Keep up the good work!

Keshun Rhodes, a seventh grader pictured above, asks about her mentor every day. Through the INSPIRE program, run by Domnick Hadley, she has found someone that she can talk to about reading, classes, teachers, and just life in general.  Though they have only met with each other once, Keshun is bubbling with excitement to work with Doreen again.  Already, Doreen has met with Keshun's language arts teacher and her mom to talk about Keshun's reading levels and how she can help to improve her grades in language arts!  

In addition to great programming after-school, UrbanFUTURE is also involved with the students during the school day!  On the 8th grade field trip to the Magic House last week, UrbanFUTURE staff helped to facilitate the trip with the 8th grade teachers and had a lot of fun in the process.  Check out some of the great fun the students (and staff!) had in the pictures below!

Ms. Berry, the IMPACT team leader, on the electric ball!  Hair flew everywhere as both teachers and students took their turn!

Ms. Krominga (science teacher) with two UrbanFUTURE students, Porcia and Darrion,  in the Mark Twain exhibit about Tom Sawyer!  Students got the opportunity to dress up like the characters they'd read about in class.

Returning Student Speaks about UrbanFUTURE

Hi my name is Janise and I attend Mann Elementary. This is my second year in UrbanFUTURE. I like it because they teach you a lot and they give you a mentor and tutor. Last year my mentor helped me improve my SRI score, now I’m reading much better. I had a problem with my division and my tutor helped me with it. The next day in class I got all my division right. UrbanFUTURE has done a lot for me. They taught me how to be more responsible too. They take us on field trips to different place so we can learn about careers. We went to SLU medical school last year and learned about doctors and what it takes to be one. My mentor goes to school there and she took us on a tour. It was really cool. They have a fake doctor’s office and they let us pretend to be doctors. For kids just entering UrbanFUTURE I would tell them positive things. I would say, “you made the right choice deciding to come here, they help you with anything you need.” UrbanFUTURE is the Best!

How You Can Help

UrbanFUTURE is gearing up for a very exciting school year this fall. After last week's successful interview weekend, we are getting ready to welcome new Team Leaders to the organization in August to begin the acculturation process at new school sites.

We have been hitting the volunteer recruiting trail hard at local cafes, major corporations, farmers' markets and outdoor concerts. We expect to be doubling our volunteer corps for the upcoming year from 200-250 to 400-500.

Finally, we're finalizing our development plans for the start of the new fiscal year on August 1st. This October, we will be conducting our first ever volunteer-driven campaign to raise money and referrals. In conjunction with the campaign, UrbanFUTURE will be holding its inaugural trivia night in November.

With so much happening at UrbanFUTURE, now, more than ever, we need your support. There are several ways you can help us out. You can sign up to volunteer as a tutor or mentor. Tutors and mentors spend an hour a week with a student at one of our school sites. Tutors focus on helping student's with homework and helping them improve their grades. Mentors work with students on goal-setting, character development and literacy. Click here to learn more about becoming a tutor or mentor and fill out an application.

If you are unable to volunteer one hour each week, but you would still like to help out, UrbanFUTURE is getting ready to start a "Friends of"-type group. This group will help to promote UrbanFUTURE, assist with fundraising events, make calls to thank donors and advocate for UrbanFUTURE whenever and wherever possible. For those interested in getting involved in this group, please call Tim Weiss at (314)776-3434 or e-mail tim@urbanfuturestl.org.

You can also help us simply by connecting UrbanFUTURE with your family and friends, who might be open to learning more about UrbanFUTURE. One of the best ways UrbanFUTURE can expand its reach in the St. Louis community is by utilizing the networks of current supporters. This will help grow our base exponentially. Referrals can be sent to tim@urbanfuturestl.org.

Finally, we always need financial support. UrbanFUTURE provides its INSPIRE, IMPACT and Explore! programs at no cost to the school district or the students and families who participate in them. For only $10, a student is able to meet with a tutor for one week. $50 covers the cost for a student to participate in the Explore! program for 1 month. For $250 a student will be able to meet with a tutor for one semester. $500 will pay for a student to meet with a mentor for one quarter. $3,000 will cover the cost for a student to participate in INSPIRE, IMPACT and Explore for the entire year. To make a donation to UrbanFUTURE, you can do so online or by mailing your donation to:

UrbanFUTURE
3145 S. Grand Ave.
Ste. A
St. Louis, MO 63118

If you have any questions about making a gift to UrbanFUTURE, please contact Tim Weiss at tim@urbanfuturestl.org or (314)776-3434.

We appreciate your continued support of UrbanFUTURE's efforts to close the achievement gap. Together we are helping urban youth see and believe in their possibilities!

Summer Vacation....Hardly

School may be out for summer, but UrbanFUTURE is still hard at work. What goes on during the hot and humid summer months at UrbanFUTURE? The answer is A LOT!

The beginning of the summer is filled with data. UrbanFUTURE spends the month of June collecting student data from the school year, compiling it and analyzing it. By the end of June, the analyzed data is put into a that we give to the St. Louis Public Schools.

We also hit the recruiting trail hard during the summer months. You may have even seen us at one of the many Kaldi's locations around the area on Saturday mornings. You may see us at various outdoor concert events donning our "I Am" t-shirts, encouraging people to volunteer as tutors and mentors for the upcoming school year.

With so many new people wanting to volunteer, we have a lot of training that needs to get done before school starts in August. Team Leaders have been working hard to refine the mentor and tutor training so volunteers are better prepared for the rigors of being an UrbanFUTURE volunteer. New trainings will start in July. In addition to fine-tuning the training, Team Leaders are busy making modifications to the mentoring and tutoring curriculum based on the feedback of our current tutors and mentors and will unveil the new curriculum to volunteers during training.

UrbanFUTURE's expansion plans have also had us in hiring mode. Over 125 individuals applied for the Team Leader position during the one month window. Staff have been logging long hours conducting phone interviews trying to find the best candidates. The final round of interviews will come over the weekend of July 9th, and final decisions will be made the next week.

Finally, development staff has stayed busy writing and submitting proposals to foundations, meeting with potential donors and working with volunteers for the annual campaign in the fall. Also being planned is an UrbanFUTURE trivia night, "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" style. This will be the first such event for UrbanFUTURE!

So while some might think that things slow down in summer, UrbanFUTURE knows things are speeding along just fine.

Letter from a Student

Below is an unedited letter from an UrbanFUTURE student to the staff at Fanning.

Dear UrbanFUTURE staff,

I just want to say thank you for helping me to be a better person in school and in the world. I’ve learned how a lot of stuff, mostly I learned how to work up my attitude. I know at the beginning I had a bad temper inside of me, but you guys helped me to always be happy.

I want to say thank you for giving me a tutor and a mentor to help me understand life and school work. Without them I wouldn’t know why I feel so different. Thank you!

Sincerely,

Aunjunae Moore


These are the kinds of letter that help us to know that what we're doing is having an impact on our students' lives.

My Experience at UrbanFUTURE

In UrbanFUTURE, I take food classes, dance classes, and work with my tutor Ms. Alaina.

In food class, my teacher Mr. Justin teaches us how to make healthy foods that are also delicious. He also teaches us how to make good health choices and how to be open to new things. In food class we made ice cream, pizza bagels, granola bars, potato wedges, and guacamole. The potato wedges were my favorite.

In dance group my teacher Ms. Sunshine teaches us how to have fun and express ourselves through dance. She teaches us dance styles that are different from the ones we already know. Not only do we do hip hop dances, but we also do African dances, etc. I enjoy it because I don’t have to be shy because I’m around friends and family.

In tutoring, I work with my tutor Ms. Alaina. We work on math, reading, and writing. I have a lot of problems with math, but Ms. Alaina shows me ways to make math easier and fun to do. Tutoring helps me because we work on the same things that I work on in school. Tutoring also helps me improve my grades.

The staff at UrbanFUTURE is nice. When I get confused and frustrated, they don’t give up or quit on me. They try to help me out so I can get back on track. I also like that the staff is very diverse. One day when we got our report cards I wasn’t very pleased about my grades. I decided to shut down for the rest of the hour. My mentor said she was going to leave but realized she cared about me and my education too much. She turned around, came back, and got me back on track. That helped to know that the UrbanFUTURE staff really cared about me.

UrbanFUTURE helps me to make good health choices, express myself, improve my grades, and know that people care about me.

By: Jya, UrbanFUTURE student

UrbanFUTURE Student Speaks

From time to time, we will have some of our students write blog posts with their mentors or tutors. Not only is this a great chance for us to share with you what they are working on, it gives students another medium to practice and improve their writing skills. This week, Chebryelle, a 4th grade student at Mann, writes about the time that she spends with her mentor Theresa.

In UF we have been setting goals and we are building charactor. Me Chebryelle and my mentor Theresa have been setting our own goals like my (ACADMIC) goal is to complete my homework before for doing any thing else. My (CHARACTOR) goal is to belive in myself.

I like Uf but you guys should stay longer. So that we can learn more and still have fun. OH did i mention that i like tutoring because she teach me how to do multiplication fact she taught me my 11's and 9's and she taught me a 9 trick and it is pretty easy.


when i grow up i want to be a singer,lawyer,teacher, and a typer. and to be one of those i have to stay in school and be BETTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and get good.

Expectations Lead to IMPACT

Drummond, a 7th grader at Fanning Middle School, hasn’t missed a week with his IMPACT tutor, Bart. He is a motivated student and really enjoys working with his tutor. When Drummond took the Pre-Algebra DOMA (Diagnostic Online Math Assessment) in October he mastered 3 out of 14 pre-algebra math constructs. Since Bart has begun working with Drummond, he has maintained high expectations of Drummond. By the end of the third quarter, Drummond mastered another construct (integer operations) from the DOMA. Bart says, "In just seven weeks, Drummond has begun to realize that he has the ability to do math at a 7th grade level. The thing that has been missing is confidence. Once we buckled down and he finally saw that he could do the work, our progress has been exponential."

With Drummond's recent success he is now working to master two more constructs. By the end of the school year, Drummond’s goal is to master those 2 additional constructs which will place him above his original goal of mastering 2 math constructs. He will have mastered 3 new constructs on the DOMA and a total of 6 of the pre-algebra constructs. Drummond, with the assistance and encouragement of Bart, is beginning to see and believe his abilities in math. Way to go, Drummond!

UrbanFUTURE Framework

UrbanFUTURE helps 4th through 8th grade urban students prepare to succeed in high school and beyond by:

• Supporting parents in taking a leadership role in their child's education
  
• Restoring an educational collaboration between the home and the classroom
  
• Positioning the community as an integral part of the educational process
  

Primary Objectives

All UrbanFUTURE (UF) students will possess the academic acumen to master high school along with the mindset to see and believe in their possibilities.

Parent Leadership

• Institute an individualized plan for student educational growth and enrichment which the parent leads (One on One INSPIRE Mentoring)
  
• Offer a parent association called UPAC (UrbanFUTURE Parent Advisory Council)


• Operate with a philosophy of individual dignity and understanding of poverty and and its hidden rules (mindset/behaviors)


• Connect families to resources in their community to remove potential obstacles to effective education.
  

Home/Classroom Alliance

• Implement INSPIRE program (parent/guardian/caregiver, teacher, mentor collaborative)


• Align goal-setting, academic achievement, literacy and character formation


• Observe students in the classroom and report on goal achievement


• Provide IMPACT tutoring programs (certified by the State of Missouri)


• Align around communication arts, math and homework help


• Celebrate student achievement throughout the year


• Deliver quarterly newsletters showcasing successes at school and home

Community Participation

• Recruit, train and support volunteers from diverse backgrounds and experiences (INSPIRE & IMPACT)


• Provide core subject remediation and homework help utilizing the services of university/high school students and adult volunteers (IMPACT)


• Involve local businesses, institutions and service sector organizations in teaching and enriching youth (Explore! Community Program)

If you would like more information about how you can get support UrbanFUTURE go to our website at http://www.urbanfuturestl.org/ or call (314)776-3434.