It Takes A Village To Help Our Children Inc

Our SHORE WAY TO COLLEGE program is a Next Generation Scholars program and provided college and career readiness services for more than 200 7TH - 12TH grade students in Somerset County Public Schools in preparation for them to receive the Guaranteed Access Grant. The grant is available to graduating seniors whose family income is 130% below the poverty level. The program provides College and Career Interns at the middle school and 2 high schools, and College Coaches at the local youth center. Students have access to tutors during and after school, participate in college awareness workshops, college and workplace tours, summer bridge program, SAT prep, essay writing and summer work opportunities with soft skills training. Parents also participate in financial aid workshops. In 2024 more than 100 students created individualized college and career plans, 123 duplicated students attended 5 college tours, 38 unduplicated students participated in tutoring, 23 parents and students participated in financial aid workshops, 15 students participated in summer bridge programming,14 unduplicated students participated in soft skills training and summer work program at 8 local businesses.

The Villages current afterschool program, READ TO LEAD, is a 21st Century Community Learning Center program providing literacy instruction, homework help, tutoring, character development, Science, Technology, Engineering Arts and Math enrichment, parent engagement, field trips, and a hot meal every day for more than 60 youth in the fall. In the summer, more than 70 youth participate in our Monday Friday, six-week program from 8:00am 4:30pm 99% of our students were minority students, 98% income qualified to receive Free and Reduced Meals, and 66.7% were reading below grade level. Aimed at improving literacy, our program uses an evidenced based on-line curriculum, i-ready. Additional evidenced based curriculum, Positive Action and Too Good for Drugs and Violence support social emotional development for our youth. During the School year we provided 64 evidenced based programming sessions, and 78% of our students met criteria for regular attendance.