Donations in the past have provided the following for ONE child:

Outcome:  Recreation & Learning; Public Safety

Core Service:  Libraries & Education; Prevention

Executive Summary:  Reaching Our Community’s Kids is a community-based program bringing local schools and community together to provide guidance and assistance to youth at-risk of dropping out of school or being involved in juvenile crimes.  ROCK is dedicated to early intervention and delinquency prevention.

Description: ROCK provides an after school program where high school students mentor middle school students, while promoting health and personal development through LifeSkills training program.  Weekly lessons include healthy decision making, resolving conflict, substance abuse and self-improvement.  ROCK educates the community and fosters awareness regarding the needs of children and the roles that community members can play in promoting the health and welfare of children.  ROCK is a service system that includes prevention and early intervention programs to provide youth with the training and encouragement required to complete their secondary education while steering clear of the Juvenile Justice system.  ROCK also provides youth with a summer camp focused on community outreach and the youth’s role in the community.

Public Safety:  Delinquency prevention and decreasing recidivism for juveniles.

Factors influencing the Core Service Matrix:

Libraries & Education:  Continue after school program providing resources to students to assist them with obtaining a high school diploma and career development.  Collaboration with private agencies to meet the needs of local children and increase the accessibility of needed services. 

Prevention:  Providing prevention and early intervention programs reduce the juvenile crime rate, which results in fewer juvenile cases filed with the court, less police involvement with juveniles and a safer community. 

Scalability:  Operating on bare bones, any decrease in funding would not allow the program to continue.  The current amount of funding provided allows ROCK to provide snacks, purchase project materials, purchase incentive prizes.  Any funds remaining go toward summer camp, which is mainly subsidized from private donations.  However, if more funds were available ROCK would be able to pay an experienced, effective facilitator for the after school program, more facilitators could be hired for summer camp, and more students would be allowed to participate in the after school program. EVERY DONATION COUNTS!