Help Kids Get Great Books to Read

Raising Reader distributes thousands of books to Bay Area children and their families each year

Love books? Love kids? Love to help kids get great Raising A Reader books? Volunteer for Raising A Reader! If you’re available Saturday August, 28th you can help sort and pack Raising A Reader books and other materials for our wonderful Raising A Reader families. Raising A Reader is a take-home book bag program, which successfully [...]

Planting Seeds to Prevent Poverty

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A recently published article takes a look at how learning can be boosted amongst children, when they are involved with school gardening projects. Specifically they found that involving children in school gardening boosted their learning and development in many areas, such as increasing: Scientific knowledge and understanding, from botany to food production. Literacy and numeracy, [...]

Attention Solano Teachers: Mini-grants Available to Boost Classroom Learning

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The Solano Community Foundation is offering mini-grants to teachers who have great projects for their students but don’t have the money to make things happen, according to today’s Fairfield Daily Republic (subscription required), The grants provide Solano County teachers with the opportunity to develop additional school projects that follow their school’s curriculum and submit it for a [...]

Back to School

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It’s back to school time, which can be fun for kids who as much they may not want to admit it, look forward to going to shopping for clothes and school supplies. Unfortunately, some kids don’t have this opportunity and aren’t able to get the basic supplies they need, things like pencils, notebooks and binders.  But with [...]

Oakland Grandmother Learns to Drive Big Rigs

East Oakland resident Jacqueline Countee came to SparkPoint Oakland Center in February to get free tax  filing help, after her brother’s friend, who is a SparkPoint client, referred her.   Free tax help was just the first step for Jackie. “When I first came to SparkPoint, I just came to get my taxes done and to [...]

How Will the Recession Affect California's Children?

Over on our twitter feed, we were alerted to a kidsdata.org report that indicates that nearly a quarter of the state’s children could be living beneath the federal poverty line due to the recent recession.  From their site: The projections suggest that as many as 2.7 million California children may live in households where earnings [...]

United Way supports First 5

United Way recently took a stand to support First 5 California, sending letters to Assembly and Senate members throughout the Bay Area to encourage them to preserve funding for this critical program.  First 5 pays for children’s health insurance and education, as well as health and human services that benefit children and families throughout the [...]

Community Schools Improve More Than Just Grades.

Over the past few years, United Way of the Bay Area has focused on new approach to helping children which has been proven to raise test scores and attendance rates in some of the area’s toughest neighborhoods.  Called Community School Partnerships, this program brings all kinds of great opportunities and services inside the school building, [...]

Seven Ways to Boost Your Child's Reading

The first few years of a child’s life are so important, and it has been said that 90% of the brain’s growth occurs from ages zero to five.  With the help of partners across the Bay Area, United Way is working both directly with children to boost their reading skills and learning potential; as well [...]

Will You Be Mine?

Send a Valentine’s Day Card to your honey and  help United Way earn some money! Target, a long time United Way supporter has created  Super Love Sender which lets you send a quirky Valentine’s Day, football-inspired video card to friends and family all while raising funds for United Way. For each card the online community [...]