Partner Spotlight: Strong Transitions
This piece was featured in the 2019 Community Impact Report. “Stewart hosts four different programs or events to help transition our incoming fifth grade students and families to middle school: Middle School Visits – Fifth grade students from our four largest feeder elementary schools come in for a “day in the life” experience. They are […]
Partner Spotlight: Developing Youth Outside of School
This piece was not featured in the 2019 Community Impact Report. “Hilltop Artists is a youth development program, which uses art as a means of engagement. Our programs are open to youth ages 12 to 20 throughout the area, and we do lots of intentional outreach to students who are marginalized in different ways. We […]
Partner Spotlight: Investing in Access
This piece was featured in the 2019 Community Impact Report. “Graduate Tacoma access funds have helped support the Tacoma Arts Live Cultural Arts Program since 2016, which provides arts-based expanded learning opportunities, through Ballet Folklorico and World Drumming. We started with an arts-integrated summer program at Roosevelt Elementary five years ago, and it has grown […]
Partner Spotlight: Planting Seeds
This piece was not featured in the 2019 Community Impact Report “Ready, Set, Read helps provide families with the tools and support they need to develop the skills and habit of reading together with their child. When families have tools, they thrive. But not all families have the tools for literacy. We have 41 sites […]
Partner Spotlight: Playing to Learn
This piece was featured in the 2019 Community Impact Report. “Inclusive Play to Learn is the Children’s Museum of Tacoma’s free drop-in kindergarten readiness program offered at 25 sites across Pierce County. Our sites extend as far west as Key Peninsula and out east to Bonney Lake. Our goal is to be within a 20-30 […]
Partner Spotlight: Safety Net
This piece was featured in the 2019 Community Impact Report. “Our Homeless Child Care Program provides families with short-term childcare subsidy, placement into high quality, licensed child care programs, and customized service coordination with other resources. Childcare provides children in crisis a safe and stimulating environment with routines, structure, and opportunities to thrive, while enabling their […]
Statewide school levy ‘fix’ has put Tacoma in a fix
Why has the Legislature’s solution to provide more uniform and equitable state education funding left 253 of the state’s 295 school districts facing devastating budget cuts this school year? A court case in 2012, known as the McCleary decision, found the state to be derelict in its paramount duty to fund basic education. After five years […]
Planning for a Career with Next Move
Christian Isaac is a youth program director at the YMCA. It’s a career path he didn’t know he wanted until enrolling in one of the first cohorts of the Next Move internship program. The Washington State Legislature is considering raising the enrichment levy lid, which will help plug a $30M budget shortfall for Tacoma Public […]
Community Leader Spotlight: Kim Keith of Hilltop Artists
Kim Keith is the Executive Director of Hilltop Artists, a role she has held since May 2017. She is also on the leadership team for the Out of School and Summer Learning Network (OSSLN), which she joined her first week as ED. Since becoming a partner she has served on the review committee for Summer […]
Centering Youth in Local Government
While attending Tacoma’s first Mayoral Candidate Forum on LGBTQ+ issues in 2017, then-candidate Victoria Woodards met a sixth grader with a clear vision for her community. “Youth are not included in the decisions and policies that impact our daily lives,” says Stella Keating, the now eighth grader who became the impetus for the Mayor’s Youth […]