Education
Focusing on Education
Our goal: To help children and youth reach their potential.
Key Strategies
- Improve access to quality, affordable childcare and early education
- Give youth after-school mentoring opportunities and career guidance
- Connect parents with resources and education
Why It's Important
Did You Know:
- A third of ninth graders will not graduate from high school.
- One in five children entering kindergarten lack the skills to learn successfully
Education is about much more than the basics. Now, more than ever, education is fundamental to the hopes and future of our young people, families and communities.
Schools and out of school programs present the first steps towards career paths, offer reinforcement of social-emotional development and teach critical thinking skills that will be used in all aspects of life.
For some children, educational environments also provide the best meals a child will eat in a given day, represent a source of stability that they struggle to find elsewhere, and give their family a chance to break the cycle of poverty.
However, report after report shows that America is falling further behind the world's leaders in preparing children for the future. As of 2009, in our region's largest school district only half of its high school students graduated in four years.
Many other local districts are struggling to reach two-thirds on time graduation rates for their students. The numbers are significantly higher for children from low income families, kids with disabilities, and African-American, Native American, Latino and other underserved populations.
What We Are Doing
United Way of the Columbia-Willamette supports our regional education goals by funding eight innovative projects through our Community Investment grants program. These projects serve culturally, geographically, and economically diverse youth and their families.
We also endorse and strive locally to achieve United Way Worldwide's goal to cut the dropout rate in half by 2018.
United Way of the Columbia-Willamette also engages in a number of special projects to serve the youth in our area. In partnership with Oregon Mentors, we are working to recruit 7,000 new mentors over the next two years to be active in young people's lives.
We have funded Oregon Children's Theater to bring important works to the stage while taking advantage of the arts to help youth grapple with difficult issues of the day and offering them a cultural experience they may not have otherwise have had.