Since 1995, the local I Have a Dream program has teamed children from low-income neighborhoods with sponsors, mentors and staff members who could help those students succeed.
As Southwest Washington’s I Have a Dream nears the end of its run, other initiatives have stepped up to help local teens complete high school and then continue their educations. And a couple of them have some Dreamer DNA.
The Penguin Promise is a partnership among the Boys & Girls Clubs of Southwest Washington, Clark College, the Clark College Foundation and community donors.
In Vancouver Public Schools, GEAR UP (Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs) is using a federal grant to help a big share of its Class of 2017 stay on track.
Leslie Durst sponsored three of the four Dreamer classes. More recently, “I’m one of the first people to support Penguin Promise,” Durst said. “I saw there wasn’t going to be another Dreamer program, so it was nice to see someone create an opportunity to raise kids up like we did.”
Durst became president of the local I have a Dream board after founder Mary Granger died in 2010.
“Mary made an effort to bring some other people on before she got sick,” Durst said. “We did get some people to contribute.” But nobody wanted to make the long-term commitment of working with kids from second grade through college.
Skyrocketing college tuition certainly didn’t help bring in new sponsors. A year of tuition and fees at Washington State University — basic part of the Dreamer formula — went from about $4,000 to about $11,000.
Some changes have been beneficial, however.
“It’s a different community now,” said Deanna Green, a longtime I Have a Dream project director. “As a community, we are more informed, educated and experienced.
“I believe awareness from people seeing I Have a Dream within the community was able to shine some light on the need,” said Green, now the organization’s only paid staffer.
“We really can do something, and the proof is programs like this that can make a difference in their lives,” Green said.
Reaching out to Clark
While Granger was unable to extend the Dreamer program, she became part of the Penguin Promise conversation. Lisa Gibert, president of the Clark College Foundation, described how a series of discussions coalesced into a program.
Foundation and school officials already were wondering how they could find a way to guarantee two years of college for local high school graduates, Gibert said.
“Mary Granger approached us and said, ‘I can’t do this forever,'” Gibert recalled. Passing some elements of the Dreamer vision on to Clark made a lot of sense, Granger said, because so many Dreamer students went to Clark.
However, Clark is not in the business of mentoring children — which was a major part of I Have a Dream. So, “we reached out for a partner,” Gibert said. They found one in the Boys & Girls Clubs of Southwest Washington.
“They said, ‘We’re already doing a teen college program, and it makes a lot of sense to us, since a lot of our kids go to Clark,’ ” Gibert said.
Green and Paul Schroeder, another longtime Dreamer staff member who shepherded students from elementary school into college, joined the discussion.
“We handed over all the college materials that we’d developed,” Green said. “It was neat to be part of that.”
So far, the Penguin Promise has raised about $1.5 million. The goal is a $3.5 million endowment. That would help bring 125 Penguin Promise scholars to Clark College each year. The first one, Mountain View graduate Che’yna Shotwell, is enrolling this fall.
“We’re very excited about that,” Gibert said. “A whole host of little Penguins is coming along behind her.”
Participants must be Boys & Girls Club members from the eighth grade on to get full benefits. Among other requirements, they must apply for at least three other scholarships annually; the Penguin Promise will provide “top-off” scholarship dollars.
Gearing up
Vancouver’s GEAR UP has a different funding model. It’s in the fifth year of a six-year federal grant.
“This grant was to the entire Class of 2017 at Gaiser, Discovery and McLoughlin middle schools,” said Nina Stemm, the district’s GEAR UP coordinator. “We’ve been with them since the seventh grade and they’re heading into their junior years of high school.”
Most of them attend Hudson’s Bay, Fort Vancouver or Skyview high schools, where paid GEAR UP staffers offer tutoring and after-school homework help. There also are visits to college campuses and career sites.
“Between the three high schools, we have about 1,300 students” in GEAR UP, Stemm said. (Across the district, about 2,300 students are in Vancouver’s Class of 2017.) “On average, about 50 percent are actively participating in some GEAR UP activity.”
The grant provides $612,000 a year; the district must match 33 percent of that through community partnerships or services or donations. It’s labor-intensive, Stemm said.
“The largest portion of what I spend grant money on is personnel costs.”
Money left at the end of the grant cycle can go toward scholarships.
“Our goal is to set up a structure to continue the program when the grant is gone,” Stemm said.
Dreamer experience
Assistant Superintendent Kathy Everidge is a link between Vancouver’s Dreamer and GEAR UP programs. She was principal at Washington Elementary in 1995 when the first I Have a Dream class was announced. Now Everidge, the district’s chief school officer, is a GEAR UP board member.
Over the years, she had a chance to see how those Washington Elementary fourth-graders progressed with the help of mentors and role models.
“I was principal at Hudson’s Bay, too. It was exciting for me to see these kids really blossom into confident leaders, with strong goals and a focus on what they wanted to achieve,” Everidge said. “It could not have been done without the training and mentoring from community members.”
Despite some differences, the two programs rely on the same resources, she said.
“Absolutely. I saw adults advocating for young people, peer mentoring, and providing experiences they wouldn’t have had. It’s the same thing GEAR UP does,” Everidge said.
However the program is structured, “It takes a lot of different people,” she said.
