Category: Partnership

Dollar General Literacy Foundation Awards Affinity New Grant

The Dollar General Literacy Foundation has awarded Affinity Mentoring a $3,000 grant to support youth literacy. This local grant award is part of more than $160 million in grants awarded to nonprofit organizations, libraries and schools across the 44 states that Dollar General serves.

Reading proficiency by 3rd grade is the most important indicator of high school graduation and career success. In 2017, 3rd grade M-STEP data for Kent County indicates that 48.6% of students have achieved proficiency. To help fill this gap, Affinity Mentoring is working alongside, schools, local businesses, non-profit organizations and individuals to lift up students in a supportive network.

The $3,000 grant will be used to support Affinity’s newest mentoring site at Godfrey-Lee Early Childhood Center in Wyoming, MI. The grant will aid in Affinity’s expansion and build capacity to recruit, train, and match more volunteers to be a caring, positive mentor and literacy support.

Approximately 30-40 new volunteers will be recruited, screened and trained in both mentoring and the fundamentals of early literacy. The volunteers will be matched with a student in Kindergarten, 1st or 2nd grade. The mentor will work in collaboration with the teacher and Site Coordinator to support the student in developing his/her literacy skills. The program will be evaluated by looking at number of matches involved, student achievement, student attendance and social emotional skill development. 

The Dollar General Literacy Foundation is proud to support initiatives that help others improve their lives through literacy and education. Since its inception in 1993, the Dollar General Literacy Foundation has awarded more than $168 million in grants to nonprofit organizations, helping more than 10 million individuals learn to read, prepare for the high school equivalency, or learn English. 



The Godfrey-Lee site is still in need of more support, you can help!

Godfrey-Lee ECC Site Now Open

On August 14, 2019 Affinity Mentoring officially opened its fourth school partnership. The Grand Rapids Chamber, Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Godfrey-Lee Schools, staff, board members, and community members celebrated the opening with an official Ribbon Cutting at Godfrey-Lee Early Childhood Center [ECC].

The expansion to a fourth school is funded by seed money from the Steelcase Foundation, which helped launch the new site [Read More]. However, the grant does not cover all costs and we are in need of additional sponsors and individual donors to support its continued growth. Read more about Community Partnerships.

Mentoring begins the week of September 16!

Affinity is working with teachers, families, and KSSN staff to refer and match up to 40 Kindergarten and 1st graders this year. To refer a student, click here.

VIEW MORE PHOTOS

Questions?

Contact: Keyla Araujo, Site Coordinator at Godfrey-Lee ECC at karaujo@affinitymentoring.org

Ribbon Cutting at New Site

Affinity Mentoring is pleased to announce that it will be opening its fourth mentoring site at Godfrey-Lee Early Childhood Center, this fall. To help celebrate this milestone, there will be a ribbon cutting event at Godfrey-Lee ECC, located at 961 Joosten Street, S.W. Wyoming, MI 49509, on August 14, at 3:30pm. Attendees of this event are encouraged to bring one mentoring item to stock the new site such as, books, games or craft supplies. Representatives of the Grand Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce and the West Michigan Hispanic Chamber of Commerce will also participate in the event.

Kevin Polston, Superintendent of Godfrey-Lee Public Schools says, “Godfrey-Lee Public Schools believes in the impact mentoring can have on a child’s education and their overall wellbeing. One of our core values is community, the belief that it takes a village to raise a child. We are honored to begin a partnership with Affinity Mentoring to provide mentoring services at the Godfrey-Lee Early Childhood Center to bring out the brilliance in each child.”

“Schools, teachers, parents, and students from all over our community have been asking for Affinity Mentoring to be available in other schools,” says Laura Ward, Executive Director of Affinity Mentoring. “We’ve been working hard to build the capacity needed to expand the program. We’re thrilled to be able to add another site where students can receive additional academic, social and emotional support and encouragement to reach their full potential.”

Since 2001 the GRPS based mentoring program has matched over 1,800 students. The new site will provide up to 40 more students with a mentor to help them succeed. However, there is still a need for more.

Julie Ridenour, President of the Steelcase Foundation says, “The Steelcase Foundation is honored to support Affinity Mentoring in its measured response to its program expansion. The growing number of requests from families for the mentoring services of Affinity is evidence of the quality of the work done by Affinity’s leadership and volunteers in three of the highest needs Kent County schools. The Steelcase Foundation is appreciative of Affinity’s willingness to base its work on the best available research, rigorous analysis, and growing dedication to improving student literacy achievement.”

The team is in the process of developing a robust fund development plan that includes grants, individual donations, corporate sponsorships, special events, and in-kind donations to ensure sustainability.

Contact: Rachel Lopez, Development Director | 616.406.3967 | rlopez@affinitymentoring.org


boldSOCKS’ Story

By Marjory Clay

Ryan + Joel

Ryan Roff is a passionate, mission-oriented Affinity mentor and partner. For the past five years, Ryan has mentored a Burton Elementary student named Joel, building a lasting bond. Ryan is originally from Minneapolis, moving to Michigan to attend Calvin College many years ago. It is there that he met his wife, Brooke, whom he now has two young children with and settled into Grand Rapids.

Ryan is highly passionate about mentoring, which has led him to not only mentor, but partner his company, boldSOCKS, with Affinity as well. “I saw a need for mentoring,” said Ryan, “I valued mentors over the years in my own life and felt a desire to pass it on. I wanted to invest into someone else. Knowing there is a waitlist for students to be matched with mentors is heartbreaking.” Each week Ryan and Joel play games together like “traffic jam” and jenga, or sometimes they work on homework or draw.


Partnership with Affinity

Ryan is the CEO and Co-Owner of a Grand Rapids based company, boldSOCKS, which currently has 8 employees who mentor weekly at Affinity. Through company give-back programs and organizational culture, their team believes that, “Together, we are a community of bold difference makers that value more than just fun socks.”

Ryan firmly believes that, “for organizations to be sustainable they need the support of businesses. Individuals have the opportunity to help, but it’s the support of the businesses that are the lifeline.”

“It was just me [mentoring] at the beginning, but we were looking for year end opportunities. No one had a response, it was eye-opening. We needed to figure out ways for employees to get involved with important causes.” Ryan began recruiting employees to mentor too. Eventually it evolved from a handful to almost the entire team.

BoldSOCKS’ staff usually carpool together to mentor, making it a type of team-building activity. “Five of us go together – we like to come in like a wrecking ball and serve at the same time.” In addition to mentoring, boldSOCKS also supports Affinity’s Annual Benefit Dinner to help ensure more students are matched with a caring mentor.

  • Mateo + Eric
  • boldSOCKS team
  • Klarisa + Autumn

If you’re interested in learning more about our partnerships, click here!
Or become a mentor, click here!

Local Mothers Group Donates 100+ Diverse Books

By: Rachel Lopez

March is #ReadingMonth! We know that reading is powerful. Books allow students to step into another world, reflect on their own life, and be inspired for the future.

However, 85% of books feature White Americans [1].

The majority of students we serve are children of color which is why we are intentional about purchasing books that reflect and celebrate diverse communities.

Diverse stories encourages self-reflection among readers and creates a sense of comfort. People like to see themselves and identify with the stories they read [2]. As you can see from the infographic below, there is a large gap in the number of diverse books [3]. It’s up to us as a community to ensure our students are being represented, uplifted, and inspired by the books in our libraries.


Last fall Natalie Hall, from the Greater Grand Rapids Chapter of Jack and Jill of America, Inc (GGRJJOA), toured our Mentor Center. Natalie explains, “GGRJJOA seeks to be an integral part of cultivating positive change and growth within our local communities. Our National and local level organization focuses on initiatives that equips our members and youth with the power to make a difference in our chapters, communities and in the lives of children around the country! We connected with Affinity Mentoring due to the commonality in your mission in ways that positively affect change and growth in our communities.”

During the tour we discussed the disparity in children’s literature featuring characters of color. Natalie decided that she and the mothers of GGRJJOA would help us tackle that challenge by pledging to donate 100 books featuring students of color by March (Reading Month).

(L-R) – Natalie Hall, Tracey Brame, La’Leatha Spillers, Veronica Bradford, and Lisa Oliver-King

For the past few months Natalie, along with 20 mothers of her local chapter, have been actively collecting and purchasing books filled with diverse characters to reflect, inspire, and celebrate our students! Together, they collected over 100 books featuring characters of color for Affinity Mentoring!

The books vary by reading level (K-8th) and include fiction, non-fiction, and Spanish language books!

We know that it’s up to us as a community to ensure our students are being represented, uplifted, and inspired by the books in our libraries. Thank you GGRJJOA for stepping up as community leaders to ensure our students can see themselves reflected in our libraries!
—
Jack and Jill of America, Incorporated is a membership organization of mothers with children ages 2-19, dedicated to nurturing future African-American leaders by strengthening children through leadership development, volunteer service, philanthropic giving and civic duty.

If you’d like to donate diverse books or create a service project that supports Affinity please contact info@affinitymentoring.org.

[1] Thomas, Ebony Elizabeth (2016). “Stories Still Matter: Rethinking the Role of Diverse Children’s Literature Today”. Journal of Language Arts. 94 (2): 112–120.

[2] Wopperer, Emily (2011). “Inclusive Literature in the Library and the Classroom”(PDF). Knowledge Quest. 39 (3): 26–34. Retrieved 7 November 2018.

[3] Reflection Press (2017). “Children’s Books as a Radical Act.” http://www.reflectionpress.com/childrens-books-radicalact/