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Over the last five years The Rotary Club of Oceanside has pursued a multi-year project to bring about meaningful, positive change to an area of our city that has been notorious over the years for gang violence - Crown Heights and surrounding neighborhoods. We entered into partnerships with two non-profit organizations which provide services to the target area as well as with the Oceanside Unified School District, whose Oceanside High School sits at the edge of Crown Heights. This collaboration enables Oceanside Rotary to help these entities by linking their efforts to reduce the attraction of gangs to the young people in the area and to provide them with a new vision of the opportunities for their future. Our primary focus for this grant is on the need to encourage children (K-12th grade) to increase literacy and cultural development, develop leadership skills, and avoid gang involvement and gain the education they need to break the cycle of poverty and violence in this local area. Last year we received and successfully executed a District matching grant to support this initiative.
There are four elements to this project:
(1) Literacy -Elementary School age Reading and Attendance Incentives
(2) Mentorship Program for Middle School age
(3) High School Graduation Incentives
(4) Leadership Development for Middle School age
Elementary School Age Reading and Attendance Incentives
Laurel Elementary School and Mission Elementary School, Title 1 (low income) schools, both serve children in the Crown Heights area. Attendance at Laurel is below the 95% goal of the school district, and 73 % of students scored below proficient on the 2012-2013 English Language Arts STAR testing while recent reading/skill benchmarks show that for most grade levels more than half of their students are below grade level. As part of a well balanced literacy program, Laurel administrators and teachers will incentivize reading and improved reading by celebrating and rewarding students throughout the year. Laurel will use Reading counts, RAZ kids, MAP assessments, and Kinder sight word to monitor and track progress throughout the year. With this grant Oceanside Rotary Club again will fund the purchase of library books and reading incentives; as appropriate club members will participate in award ceremonies.
Mission Elementary School also serves Crown Heights students. Last year with our District matching Grant Oceanside Rotary Club donated books to the school library fulfilling all of the library's needs for the year. We intend to provide funds for library books again this year.
Budget: $1000 for Laurel School library books and reading incentives
$1000 for Mission Elementary Library Books
Timeline: Funding will be provided near the beginning of the school year
Mentorship Program:
Oceanside Rotary Club's newest concept for community enrichment was begun three years ago under our District matching grant: it is engaging Club members, many of whom benefited from mentors when growing up in this and other communities. It has been successful in raising middle-schoolers' awareness of life options that were not apparent to them previously, and Lincoln Middle School administrators have reported that some of the students attending our events have shown a marked improvement in their grades and their attitudes toward school. The vision of the program is for Oceanside Rotary Club members and family members to take young people from the Crown Heights neighborhood who attend Lincoln Middle School to various chosen venues, which will include college campus tours, thus providing them with exposure to educational, sporting and cultural events that they may not otherwise be able to experience. Each outing will include dinner at the Oceanside Harbor. Venues planned for this year include:
San Diego State sporting events & campus tours
Mira Costa College sporting events & campus tours
MiraCosta Theatre Production & campus tour
Cal State San Marcos tour and event
Camp Pendleton tour
At each venue, at least two members of Oceanside Rotary will accompany 4 - 6 youngsters; all participating adults will be trained and vetted with the District 5340 Youth Volunteer Affidavit. Oceanside Rotary will obtain entrance tickets to each venue and expend funds for food etc. as appropriate. In these casual settings, each Rotarian will make an effort to befriend and engage the youngsters, giving them a positive role model and someone to talk to and share ideas and feelings. At some point after each event the Rotarian and some of the young guests will be responsible for presenting a program at Oceanside Rotary explaining what took place and how the event affected them. Transportation will be provided by the Rotarians who will use private vehicles to the site of the event and who will be reimbursed for gas and other expenses if desired. Liability insurance for the events will be provided by Rotary International's blanket coverage. The youngsters, who will all come from the Crown Heights neighborhood, will be chosen by staff and teachers from Lincoln Middle School. Oceanside Rotary will also involve North County Life Line, a local non-profit organization which operates programs and services in the Crown Heights neighborhood. There will be some costs involved that this grant would help reimburse which include transportation, food, programs and incidentals that will make the experience vivid for the students. We envision all the tickets being donated by the above Organizations, but the individual Rotarians may request reimbursement of some of their costs.
Budget: $750 for miscellaneous expenses
Timeline: Start time is dependent upon Oceanside School District, however once begun events are envisioned to be approximately monthly thru the end of the school year.
High-School Graduation Incentives
This grant will provide support to Oceanside High School graduates who participate in the North County Lifeline program designed for Crown Heights students: every year the Oceanside Rotary club donates funds to support the graduation incentives established by NC Lifeline - a lei made out of fifty one-dollar bills. With last year's grant we donated $750 to provide leis for fifteen graduates; we anticipate a similar number of graduates from the program this year.
Budget: $ 750 for High School graduation incentive dollar-leis
Timeline: The 50-Dollar Leis will be presented to OHS students upon graduation.
Leadership Development
This grant will augment our mentorship program at Lincoln Middle School by having a panel of speakers present to Lincoln Middle School parents and their children about their life experiences, successes, and challenges. This even last year was very informative for parents, highlighting successful youth and youth programs in the community. The highlight of the event will be to give away five Chromebooks to middle-school children (to be selected by the Rotary club and the school administration) that might otherwise not have access to computers for homework at home. The Chromebooks cost about $300.00 each. We believe that parents and children will benefit greatly from hearing success stories from people in their own community, and we hope that this event will continue to inspire students to aspire to higher learning and leadership positions in the future.
Budget: $1500 for Chromebooks
Timeline: the Middle-School event timing will be dependent on the availability of the community speakers and on scheduling with the school's other activities, but it is anticipated to occur in late August 2017.
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