By Carolyn Meyers | Assistant to the Director
These past 6 months have been filled with exciting changes here at the School of Hope. We opened our doors in late January and had in-person classes for the first time in nearly two years. This is a huge success that we have been working towards for a long time. Being fully in-person once again has allowed us to better serve our students by providing them with two meals a day, better access to psychological care, as well as many more benefits.
Though our teachers worked as hard as possible to make distance learning tenable over the last two years, it was a difficult situation for our students who do not typically have consistent access to technology and the internet at their homes. The school attempted to cover this gap with tablets and internet packages but even this could not fully compensate for the additional distractions our students faced while receiving school in their homes. It is common for our students to live in multiple family homes where they do not have the space to focus on schoolwork and often cannot avoid household responsibilities and pressure to work to support their families.
Therefore, returning to school has provided our most vulnerable students with the opportunity to have a space in which they can focus on learning. During our first trimester back at the school we completed academic testing to determine how the pandemic had affected the students' learning and made specific plans to overcome these shortcomings. For example, we are starting our Saturday school program to specifically help 70 students who are behind in reading, writing, and math. Additionally, as most schools in the area are not open, we are offering space at School of Hope to our scholarship students where they may receive their online classes and not be distracted.
Now that we are open we are also able to offer more health and psychosocial services. For example, since opening in January all staff has received their booster during a vaccine drive at the school and 133 of our students at School of Hope have received their first and second vaccine dose. Last week we also had hearing tests for all students and interested teachers and next month will start mental health screenings. Being in-person has allowed us to more easily provide holistic care to our students.
Last week, our Project Director, Sara Miller, went to NYC to host a fundraising event with our longtime supporter, Emily Torre. The event was a sucess and raised $5,614.89. Sara will be flying to Wyoming and having another fundraising event May 4th. Additionally, we are already preparing for our 20th anniverserary celebration of the foundation in Guatemala next July. Our Outreach team has been recording a podcast that will drop next month on Spotify to introduce our followers to the people who make EFTC possible. Though we still have a long way to go we are proud of how much we have done having only been open for 4 months.
Links:
By Sara Miller | Project Director
By Jennifer McCallum | Assistant to the Director
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