Building on a strong civic foundation
The Community Experience Partnership grant offers The Community Foundation Serving Richmond and Central Virginia an opportunity to address two major needs in the Greater Richmond community: the need to improve students’ engagement and achievement in middle school in order to reduce drop-out rates, and the expressed need by older adults in Greater Richmond to know how to connect with meaningful volunteer opportunities.
Insightful Knowledge
In the recent research supported by the Community Experience Partnership (CEP) and completed by The Community Foundation in January 2009, older residents in Greater Richmond reported that they were prepared to volunteer in great numbers and had a particular interest in contributing to education and intergenerational activities. When asked why they did not volunteer,
- 57% of them cited “lack of capacity among nonprofits” as a barrier to participation
- 43% of them said they “lacked awareness of opportunities”
- 30% cited “lack of availability”
There is a clear interest in connecting with young people among older adults in Greater Richmond. What is missing is a path to connect interest to need and ability for the nonprofit sector to engage and retain older adults in meaningful, flexible, and purposeful work.
Responding to a Community Need
Meeting in the Middle
A partnership facilitated by the foundation, Meeting in the Middle is an intergenerational project that will meet those needs by improving conditions for middle school students and creating a sustainable infrastructure that will capture and leverage the talents of older adults over the next three years. The project will deploy an estimated 100 older adult volunteers into two middle schools in the City of Richmond during the first year, sustain and institutionalize that commitment beyond the grant period, and produce an outreach and training package for replication with an estimated 75 nonprofits in Greater Richmond each year.
Drop-out Prevention
Increasingly, Richmond educators, community-based providers, and parents are seeing a pattern of decreased engagement and achievement in school beginning with middle school transition. In the City of Richmond, just two-thirds (65.9%) of young people graduate on time, as compared to 82.1% in the State. The majority of these middle school students will move on to high schools where their chance of graduating in four years can be as low as 56%. Richmond’s young people enter middle school doors with a significant set of barriers; over 30% of Richmond children and youth live below the poverty line and more than half are raised in single-family homes¹.
The middle school years are also a time when a positive relationship with an adult can make a major impact in students’ lives. With an ambitious goal of matching one mentor to each young person, Richmond Public Schools has asked Communities in Schools (CIS), the largest dropout prevention organization in the United States, and Virginia Mentoring Partnership (VMP), the State’s mentor agency, to help meet this goal. Meeting in the Middle is the vehicle that The Community Foundation and CIS have identified to meet this goal at two elementary schools, in partnership with VMP, Hands On Greater Richmond, and the Older Dominion Partnership. Together this team will bring older adults into two high-need middle schools as mentors. Understanding older adults desire for flexibility, they will also provide a range of additional volunteer opportunities – including one-day service projects, tutoring, and assisting with clubs - all with the goal of increasing school achievement and engagement, tapping the wisdom and experience of older adults.
Building Capacity for Older Volunteers to Contribute
The Project Coordinator for Meeting in the Middle will produce a volunteer orientation manual for new older adult volunteers who enter the middle-school environment, a volunteer management guide for CIS and school staff, and a plan for providing technical assistance throughout the year. These materials will be developed so that they can be easily adapted to be used by staff or volunteer leaders at any nonprofit or public agency in the Greater Richmond area. Communities in Schools will serve as the pilot for this training and technical assistance package. Hands On Greater Richmond will universalize the materials and process during the first year, and develop it into a region-wide resource for broader use during the following years, with an estimated reach of 75 nonprofits annually.
To enhance this effort, the Older Dominion Partnership created a marketing and communications strategy that will engage a new cohort of older adult volunteers in a dynamic and meaningful community involvement experience and increase their interest in contributing to their communities.
¹ Unless otherwise noted, figures in this report are taken from the U.S. Census 2006 American Community Survey.
