First Lady Laura Bush honored the YMCA of Greater Charlotte’s Starfish Academy with a national award on Tuesday, January 22 in Washington DC.
Starfish Academy, a literacy program for academically at-risk children, was among 17 youth arts and humanities programs to receive the national Coming Up Taller Award. The award, along with a $10,000 grant, was presented to the YMCA’s Community Development program director Rachel Harris, and a participant of Starfish Academy, Joaquin Perez.
The Coming Up Taller Awards recognize and support outstanding community arts and humanities programs that celebrate the creativity of America’s young people, and provide them with new learning opportunities and a chance to contribute to their communities.
Developed by the YMCA of Greater Charlotte, Starfish Academy is a literacy program that builds important reading and writing skills among children who are at-risk of academic underachievement. Founded in 1999 through a partnership with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools as a summer literacy camp, it expanded in 2004 to include an after school component and now serves nearly 300 children at nine sites throughout the community.
Starfish Academy combines literacy instruction with arts programming and physical activity for first and second grade students who read at least half a year below their grade level. As the program’s centerpiece, each student creates his or her own book to take home after graduation, which provides a keepsake representing accomplishments that can be shared with friends and family.
“We give the YMCA’s Starfish Academy our highest recommendation and feel quite confident that the program will help promote a creative, engaged, skilled and confident generation of young people,” said Regina R. Smith, Vice President, Grants & Services of the Arts & Science Council in Charlotte.
The results are impressive: An average of 85% of the participants improve reading skills and 90% of past participants successfully complete their third grade competency exams, advancing to the next grade.
“It has been a blessing to watch Starfish Academy touch the lives of children, parents, teachers and volunteers,” said Cynthia Flynn, Vice President of Community Development for the YMCA of Greater Charlotte.
You can help improve literacy in our community by giving to the YMCA.With your help, the YMCA of Greater Charlotte will put nearly 300 kids through Starfish Academy this year.
To find out how to give, contact:
Carol Naples
(704) 716-6242
carol.naples@ymcacharlotte.org