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

Student Reaches New Heights in Literacy

Elizabeth, a 4th grade student at Mann Elementary, wanted to become a better reader. She and her INSPIRE mentor, Molly, along with Elizabeth’s mother, Mrs. Castro and her teacher, Mrs. Slechta have been working hard all year to improve Elizabeth’s reading comprehension and Scholastic Reading Inventory (SRI) score. Through daily effort and consistent follow through, Elizabeth was able to raise her SRI score by 409 points—which is 121 points over her goal set at the beginning of the year. WOW! Living proof that the best way to get better at reading is by reading! Awesome work, team!

Parent Leadership - Our Keystone to Success

What is it that differentiates UrbanFUTURE from other organizations that providing mentoring? The biggest difference is our emphasis on involving the parent. In fact, we believe that without engaging the parent as a leader in their child's education, we will see mediocre results that are less likely to be lasting. That's not to say a child cannot benefit from having an adult mentor, but generally, to have a sustainable, lasting impact in that child's life, the parent or some other responsible adult has to be involved and leading the change.


To UrbanFUTURE, parent leadership is parents leading the child's goal accomplishment process, holding a child accountable for his/her (in)actions, encouraging the child to succeed and acting as an advocate for the best interest of the child. Parents who fulfill these roles, will likely see their son or daughter develop into a good student and a good person.


There are many barriers that exist in engaging parents. In some cases a cultural and language barrier exist for parents. While a parent may wish to help a child with homework, a lack of English may prevent that from happening. A similar situation exists for parents who have to work in the evenings and are unable to provide homework help for the child despite their desire to do so. Other parents may not have the necessary skills themselves to help on difficult math, science or writing assignments. Still others may be operating under a veil of ignorance in which they don't know of their child's deficient skills due to satisfactory grades (another topic for another day, perhaps). Finally, there are some who are well aware of their child's struggles, but don't know what they can do to help. The combination of many of these can lead to parents who appear apathetic to their child's education.


UrbanFUTURE turns that apathy on its head. By telling parents that they can not only help their child, but they can lead their child's education they re-gain control of the situation. We do this by setting high expectations for parents and challenging them to step up their efforts. We offer opportunities for them to network with other parents. We provide trainings for how they can work on goals with their child, help them improve their literacy and even how to better communicate with an adolescent child. We encourage them to come to the school to help out, sit in the classroom and talk with teachers. As parents become more comfortable in their role as a leader, their child in turn will see how much the parent truly values a good education.


It's when the parents come to see and believe in their own possibilities as parents that their child sees and believes in their possibilities as person.

A Final Push

Spring has arrived in St. Louis. For UrbanFUTURE that means there is one more quarter to make a final push to end the year strong. It's easy for students to lose focus when the weather warms up, the days are longer and summer is right around the corner. Despite all of that UrbanFUTURE staff and volunteers are working diligently to ensure students finish the year strong.

In preparation for year-end diagnostic tests, students at Fanning are having competitions in educational games that are enhancing their skills in math and communication arts. With teachers assigning less homework, these competitions help to keep the students' minds sharp, while having a good time.

Fanning students are also participating in reading circles. These small groups read a book together and have an opportunity to have open discussions. It's been a great way for students to keep building their literacy in a casual, laid-back atmosphere. Jennifer Davies, IMPACT Manager at Fanning, said, "This week students were disappointed about missing the reading circles because of having to take the post-test. They are very excited to get back to their small group next week."

At Mann, INSPIRE Team Leaders Lauren Coppedge and Sakinah Ra'uf have been emphasizing goal achievement. To ensure that students are staying on track for their 4th quarter goals, they have been checking in with teachers each week to see that students are following through on weekly action steps. Mentors are also checking student progress on goals each week and helping students fulfill weekly action steps. Team Leaders have also created a goal board that publicly displays each team's progress towards their goals. As an added incentive, students who achieve their 4th quarter goal will get a McDonald's Happy Meal at the end of the year.

The nice weather can be a major distraction for students, but at UrbanFUTURE students are learning the importance of finishing the year on a high note.

Saigh Foundation Impressed

Two representatives from the Saigh Foundation came to UrbanFUTURE today to meet our Team Leaders and learn more about our work. Upon awarding UrbanFUTURE $10,000 to help fund a Team Leader salary in January, JoAnn Hejna and Mary Kemp told us how impressed they were with UrbanFUTURE. They couldn't believe they had never heard of us based on the success we were having nor were they aware of another organization in St. Louis that was doing anything nearly as deep and narrow as Restoration. JoAnn and Mary saw our parent leadership piece as not only unique, but also crucial to really creating lasting change.

During the visit, Mary and JoAnn asked questions about our history, how we train volunteers, what made us different and how we deal with parents who aren't ready to engage. They had a chance to meet and talk to a few students at Mann Elementary and were given a tour of the UrbanFUTURE room by a 4th grade student. They saw the students' excitement when talking about their mentors and tutors and noted how eager the kids were to interact with UrbanFUTURE staff.

After going to Mann, we went for lunch at Cafe Natasha's. JoAnn shared stories about Fred Saigh and his random acts of philanthropy.. She noted how he didn't care who you were, if you needed help he would find a way to give it to you without a second thought. For JoAnn and the Saigh Foundation, it makes grant-making much easier knowing that Fred wouldn't bat an eye at any organization in need. She said she knew Fred would think highly of UrbanFUTURE's vision to help urban youth see and believe in their possibilities.

As Frank Van Bree, UrbanFUTURE's CEO, shared more about his own history with UrbanFUTURE, JoAnn and Mary could feel the underlying passion that exists in UrbanFUTURE, and how it permeates from the top. They urged us to get the word out about UrbanFUTURE and even opened the door for future funding opportunities. Most of all, JoAnn and Mary see that Restoration will work and UrbanFUTURE will succeed, but it will take persistence and patience. Let's prove them right!

Waking the Dreamless Dead

In John Zogby's book The Way We'll Be, he spends some time discussing what he refers to as the Dreamless Dead. The Dreamless Dead refers to the people, who in response to a polling question regarding a person's goals in life, chose the following option:

"I believe I cannot achieve the American dream, whether material or spiritual, nor can most middle-class Americans."

Zogby goes onto to say that the Dreamless Dead are heavily represented by those living in poverty. He talks about how even those living below the poverty line still have many possessions (major appliances, televisions, computers, etc.). But it's this statement that really gets to the heart of poverty, "...the real poverty from which many of them suffer is a poverty of optimism and expectations, not possessions." This is what restoration seeks to correct.

It's about injecting optimism into the lives of students. It's about holding students accountable for their actions and not letting them settle for complacency. It's about engaging parents in their child's education, their future. It's about mentors encouraging students both when they succeed and when they fail. The essence of helping urban youth to see and believe in their possibilities, goes to the very heart of the "real poverty" that the Dreamless Dead suffer. With persistence and hard-work from all, we can wake the Dreamless Dead in St. Louis and restore what poverty has taken.