Strategies & Sustainability
Our Approach
Cultivating, Activating, Sustaining Innovative Programming Through Partnerships
The Grinnell Education Partnership, aligned with the National Campaign for Grade Level Reading and emergent local priorities has activated and sustained a range of partnership activities supporting area youth and families.
Developed as innovative local solutions, the initiatives below are now being sustained through GEP community partners.
Summer Learning Corps
Grinnell College coordinates alignment between five community programs (Drake Community Library, Grinnell College Museum of Art, Grinnell Community Early Learning Center's Grinnell Area Summer Camp, Grinnell-Newburg Community School District's Summer Learning is Cool for Kids {SLICK}, and LINK-Grinnell) to recruit, place, and train AmeriCorps members in area summer youth programs. This hallmark program has successfully helped mitigate summer learning loss for young children since 2015.
Healthy Readers
The Claude W. and Dolly Ahrens Foundation coordinates a variety of health and wellness solutions for children and their families through their P.O.W.E.R. Kids program.
NEST
Greater Poweshiek Community Foundation hosts NEST (Navigating Economic Stability Together), a privately funded guaranteed-income pilot designed to study economic stability in collaboration with a network of community partners. For more information, visit NEST.
School Readiness
Read 2 Lead of Poweshiek County empowers our youth, one book at a time, through its non-profit literacy programs.
School-to-Work
Grinnell-Newburg Community School District supports workforce readiness programs for students, better preparing them for life beyond school. Together with community partners, the District aligns resources and initiatives to benefit middle school and high school students such as internships, speakers, and career fairs.
Attendance
The Grinnell Newburg School District identifies solutions to promote student attendance. School leadership works with families to ensure there are support systems in place so students can attend school regularly.
Digital Access
The Grinnell Newburg School Foundation supports youth and family initiatives to ensure greater digital access, equity, and inclusion for children and families in the greater Grinnell area.