We would like to extend a warm welcome to our 2024-25 Literacy AmeriCorps members for Project Grow, Ayanna Hendricks (left) and Gaby Barber (right). Throughout the school year, they will work individually with the elementary school students enrolled in Project Grow’s afterschool program, providing the children with one-on-one reading sessions. Ayanna and Gaby will work on identifying the reading levels, strengths, and areas of improvement for all students, while encouraging them to develop their reading skills and explore and expand their interest in reading.
The role of our AmeriCorps members is much more than just picking books from the shelf to read. Every year, the volunteers forge strong relationships with our students. They plan creative interactive activities to take learning off of the page.
Because literacy is a foundational requirement for academic success, providing the young students at Project Grow with the opportunity to develop their language arts skills is critical to overcoming the academic setbacks they may have experienced while facing homelessness and instability.
The educational programming at Project Grow, including the steady presence of Literacy AmeriCorps members, is having a measurable impact on the students. According to an independent evaluation completed by Geo Education and Research, last year Project Grow students scored an average of seven percentage points higher than the comparison group in English Language Arts on the state’s FAST (Florida Assessment of Student Thinking) test.
We are thankful for our longstanding partnership with the Literacy Coalition of Palm Beach County. We have had the pleasure of working with AmeriCorps members for over 20 years, including our current Director of Youth Educational Programs, Daron Morse, who originally started with Adopt-A-Family as a Literacy AmeriCorps member.
We are excited and thankful for Ayanna and Gaby as they nurture a love of reading in our students.