Grant Opportunity Summer Matters Sacramento Mini-Grants

The UC Davis Center for Community School Partnerships will bring together summer learning practitioners and community-based educators from across the Sacramento region to begin building a movement to develop and promote quality summer opportunities for youth.

Summer Matters Sacramento mini-grants assist innovative educators working with low-income youth and youth of color to design and implement high quality summer learning programs, that address summer learning loss and the opportunity and achievement gap.

Summer programs are taking place in a variety of settings – schools, community centers, homes, churches, and college campuses. But often these programs and providers find themselves isolated with few resources, little support, and limited connection to others who share their concern. The mini-grants represent a unique and exciting opportunity to learn and build strengths from colleagues. This is a critical first step in the process of transforming summer program efforts from a collection of individual trying to make a difference into a strong movement for summer education reform.

What we hope to achieve:

• To build connections of high quality professional development learning opportunities between people from different summer programs in the Sacramento Region
•  To talk about quality summer research, standards, policy, and funding. To develop practical skills and techniques that can be used to address summer learning loss.
•  To determine what steps need to be taken to further develop a regional summer matters movement

Who Should Apply for the Mini-grants?
(Individuals running a youth summer program in the Sacramento Region)

• Extended-day, after-school, and out-of-school-time practitioners
•  Teachers (elementary through high school)
•  Community-based educators and activists
• University Partners

The Call

Deadline for Proposals –   May 18th
Notification  -   May 30th
Grant Timeline  -  June 2012 – January 2013
Mini-Grant Award Amount  Up to $1000

Here’s what you need to apply
(Two-Page Maximum)

We are seeking individuals and organizations who would like to enhance their professional development, understanding, and practice of quality summer learning programs. We are aiming for a diverse cohort of first-year grantees. To keep the initiative unified we are asking all applicants to address the following questions in there submissions:

1. What does high quality summer programs mean to you or your organization?
2.  What impact does it/or should it have on young people from disenfranchised or low-income communities?
3. Who are your summer community partners and why are they important to you or your organization?
4. Project Budget – Outline of proposed summer activities and costs.
5. Contact person, organization/school, address, phone number, and email

We are particularly interested in proposals that:

• Place emphasis on helping link summer programs to schools and out-of-school-time extended learning opportunities for youth.
•  Include personal experiences running and developing summer programs.
• Are led by people who reflect the communities that they serve particularly in terms of race, class, and sexual orientation.

Summer Matters Sacramento mini-grants grantee commitment and benefits:

• Attend three professional development and trainings
• Participate in a digital media summer learning project
• Participate in regional summer learning action planning policy webinar

Please email proposals to:

UC Davis School of Education – Center for Community School Partnerships
Kindra F. Montgomery-Block
Director of Training and Community School Partnerships
kfmontgomery@ucdavis.edu
(530) 752-6090