Providence Children’s Museum AmeriCorps Team Logs 22,500 Hours
Thursday, September 05, 2013
The Providence Children's Museum's 17th AmeriCorps team dedicated a whopping 22,500 hours to RI's underserviced children.
Providence Children’s Museum has been an AmeriCorps national service site since 1997, committed to training a team of educators to bring engaging play-based activities to children whose exposure to rich learning experiences is limited. The Museum’s AmeriCorps program has served over 20,000 children through innovative outreach to inner-city community centers and Head Start programs over 16 years.
Unsung heroes
The 16 AmeriCorps members on the 2012-13 team extended the Museum’s reach to kids and families in underserved communities throughout and around Providence and had a tremendous impact. The team helped children discover the joy of learning throughout the year. Their efforts focused around three aspects:
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST- Leading imaginative hands-on activities about the value of diversity to help improve school readiness for 1,000 Head Start preschoolers in 58 classrooms in Providence, Pawtucket and Central Falls, as well as leading them on fun Museum explorations
- Facilitating after-school and summer Learning Clubs–engaging STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) enrichment activities–for over 550 low-income children from 20 community sites in Providence, Pawtucket and Central Falls. Participants benefited from creative hands-on activities that foster science process and problem solving skills and explored the Museum’s interactive exhibits. Summer programs supported school readiness for rising kindergartners and combatted summer learning loss for elementary school-age kids–an average of two months of grade-level equivalency in math skills and three months in reading skills.
- Welcoming over 1,300 low-income children and their family members to free Museum family nights, where they received complimentary year-long admission passes.
The Museum’s AmeriCorps team is a group of dynamic and diverse individuals who, under the guidance of Museum education staff, work to instill a lifetime love of learning in children. Dedicated to a year of outreach service at the Museum, AmeriCorps members receive training in hands-on learning as well as living allowances and educational grants in return for their participation in this national service program.
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