Family and Community Involvement

Family involvement is promoted in the YMCA READS! Program, because it helps foster children’s literacy and success in school. Parents are taught strategies to help their child read at home as well as to share stories and use them for family discussions. They are invited to participate in the sessions, get regular progress reports, and are encouraged to voice their opinions about the program through surveys and informal meetings.

Community organizations such as colleges, local high schools, libraries, churches, volunteer centers or businesses provide mentors for the YMCA READS! Program. To date, over 800 mentors have participated in the program.

Private foundations and businesses such as the Knights of Columbus, local country clubs, JC Penney, Starbucks, Target, Verizon, Barnes and Noble, or Books a Million have provided additional funding and books to the YMCA READS! Program.

Participating YMCAs contribute matching funds and additional services such as scholarships for youth and sports programs to meet each child’s needs for relationship-building, recreation and supervised after-school care.

Volunteer Florida Foundation (www.volunteerfloridafoundation.org) and the Florida Mentoring Partnership (www.flamentoring.org) provide training and mentoring to community-based organizations across Florida.

The State Department of Education provides grant funding to mentoring organizations, and school districts collaborate with YMCA READS! Programs to refer students. The open sharing of information and ideas between the YMCA READS! Coordinators, school staff and parents is a key element to the program’s success.

This “Whole Village” approach focuses on developing the educational and developmental needs of struggling and/or low-income children by creating a seamless plan of action for improvement.