Vanessa Bartram is fundraising
Support Our Community with Food, Rent and Tutoring
Friends,
Like many of you, we have been at a loss as to how to reach out and support our community during this scary period of overwhelming loss, illness and financial insecurity. Fortunately we have a great organization -- Sandy Springs Mission -- in our area that is doing just that, focused on the immigrant Latino community.
Felix Lora, the Mission's Executive Director, and his dedicated team typically spend their time delivering after-school and summer programs to help improve education and poverty in Atlanta's Latino immigrant community. However, Covid-19 has left the Mission's staff scrambling to ensure that the hundreds of families they serve have food on their table, the ability to make rent, and tutors to prevent their children from falling behind in school.
Covid-19 has hit this community particularly hard. A majority of the Mission's families work in food service and have lost their jobs. Approximately 90% of these working parents are undocumented, so they are ineligible for unemployment benefits and stimulus payments, leaving them with nowhere else to turn. Finally, foreign-born parents with limited English and computer skills are struggling to support their children with the demands of remote schooling, and their elementary and middle school students are falling behind.
So, we're asking for your support in two ways:
1. Please help us raise funds to support the Mission's critical and time sensitive work. Funds will be used to distribute supermarket gift certificates and rent assistance to the Mission's most vulnerable families. $500 will support a single family for one month of food and rent support.
2. We are also having a great time tutoring elementary school students via Zoom, and think you would too! Consider joining us by signing up here . This is a great way for kids of all ages (especially high schoolers) to spend time during the day!
Muchísimas gracias from the bottom of our corazones. You warm our hearts by joining us to care for our community in this difficult time.
Vanessa + The Linowes Boys -- Steve, Jaren, Simon and Levi
More information about Sandy Springs Mission, Inc.
The Sandy Springs Mission (SSM) exists to help and inspire at-risk students obtain a high school diploma and pursue higher education by providing after school enrichment programs and by guiding them to a more abundant life. SSM provides academic enrichment programs to more than 325 children in grades 1-12 throughout the year via its After School Programs for elementary students, Path to College for high school students, SpringUp Middle School Programs, MYP Mentoring (for high school students), Summer Camps, and STEM programs. As the only organization in Sandy Springs to work with children throughout their academic career and throughout the year, the SSM is effectively changing the lives of its participants and helping them succeed.
We consider students to be at-risk if the student comes from a home where:
- English is not spoken as the primary language;
- the parents are not able to help their children with schoolwork because of their own low-level of education, and/or;
- the parents cannot pay for the extra help necessary for their child to succeed in school.
Academic success is essential for the future of our children as well as the future of our communities. That is why it is our goal to see each of the children enrolled in the Mission’s programs to attain a high school diploma.
Most recent outcomes: Up to May 2019, over 150 SSM students graduated from high schools around the Atlanta area, and these students credited much of their academic success to the assistance they received in our organization. The majority of them became the very first ones in their families to receive a high school diploma. Not only that, but a large percentage of our students were enrolled in college last fall. For the last five years, our students have met or exceeded the requirements for the CRCT and the Georgia Milestone.
Like many of you, we have been at a loss as to how to reach out and support our community during this scary period of overwhelming loss, illness and financial insecurity. Fortunately we have a great organization -- Sandy Springs Mission -- in our area that is doing just that, focused on the immigrant Latino community.
Felix Lora, the Mission's Executive Director, and his dedicated team typically spend their time delivering after-school and summer programs to help improve education and poverty in Atlanta's Latino immigrant community. However, Covid-19 has left the Mission's staff scrambling to ensure that the hundreds of families they serve have food on their table, the ability to make rent, and tutors to prevent their children from falling behind in school.
Covid-19 has hit this community particularly hard. A majority of the Mission's families work in food service and have lost their jobs. Approximately 90% of these working parents are undocumented, so they are ineligible for unemployment benefits and stimulus payments, leaving them with nowhere else to turn. Finally, foreign-born parents with limited English and computer skills are struggling to support their children with the demands of remote schooling, and their elementary and middle school students are falling behind.
So, we're asking for your support in two ways:
1. Please help us raise funds to support the Mission's critical and time sensitive work. Funds will be used to distribute supermarket gift certificates and rent assistance to the Mission's most vulnerable families. $500 will support a single family for one month of food and rent support.
2. We are also having a great time tutoring elementary school students via Zoom, and think you would too! Consider joining us by signing up here . This is a great way for kids of all ages (especially high schoolers) to spend time during the day!
Muchísimas gracias from the bottom of our corazones. You warm our hearts by joining us to care for our community in this difficult time.
Vanessa + The Linowes Boys -- Steve, Jaren, Simon and Levi
More information about Sandy Springs Mission, Inc.
The Sandy Springs Mission (SSM) exists to help and inspire at-risk students obtain a high school diploma and pursue higher education by providing after school enrichment programs and by guiding them to a more abundant life. SSM provides academic enrichment programs to more than 325 children in grades 1-12 throughout the year via its After School Programs for elementary students, Path to College for high school students, SpringUp Middle School Programs, MYP Mentoring (for high school students), Summer Camps, and STEM programs. As the only organization in Sandy Springs to work with children throughout their academic career and throughout the year, the SSM is effectively changing the lives of its participants and helping them succeed.
We consider students to be at-risk if the student comes from a home where:
- English is not spoken as the primary language;
- the parents are not able to help their children with schoolwork because of their own low-level of education, and/or;
- the parents cannot pay for the extra help necessary for their child to succeed in school.
Academic success is essential for the future of our children as well as the future of our communities. That is why it is our goal to see each of the children enrolled in the Mission’s programs to attain a high school diploma.
Most recent outcomes: Up to May 2019, over 150 SSM students graduated from high schools around the Atlanta area, and these students credited much of their academic success to the assistance they received in our organization. The majority of them became the very first ones in their families to receive a high school diploma. Not only that, but a large percentage of our students were enrolled in college last fall. For the last five years, our students have met or exceeded the requirements for the CRCT and the Georgia Milestone.
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