Lisa OliverMayor Thomas Menino yesterday unveiled the largest public-private partnership in Boston’s history dedicated to serving children at Jackson-Mann Elementary School in Allston.
Dubbed the After-School for All Partnership, the program came to fruition when Menino and the city of Boston teamed up with 12 Boston-based charities and corporations to provide $23 million over the next five years to supply after-school programs.
Nearly 300 people packed into the school auditorium to hear Menino, Harvard University President Neil Rudenstine, United Way of Massachusetts Bay President and CEO Marian Heard, and many other distinguished guests speak.
The program has three main goals: to expand the availability of quality after-school programs for low-income children in Boston, to integrate high-impact learning activities into after-school programs and to support efforts to use public revenue to fund after-school programs in Boston.
Such after-school programs are beneficial because children only spend 20 percent of their waking hours in school and almost 3/4 of children in Massachusetts live in families where a single parent or both parents work, according to a 1999 study at Northeastern University.
Although there are already 17,000 children enrolled in after-school programs in Boston, 15,000 more need affordable, accessible after-school programs, according to Partnership supporters.
Rev. Gregory Groover Sr. heralded Menino as a “passionate champion of our youth.” Since 1998, Menino has made the issue of after-school time one of his top priorities by creating the Boston 2:00-6:00 After-School Initiative and the Task Force of After-School Time.
An important aspect of the After-School for All Partnership is to “make sure every kid has the opportunity for a better future” Menino said. “Kids who participate [in after-school activities] do better in the classroom. Kids who participate do better in life.”
The Partnership, chaired by Chris Gabrieli, who is also the chairman of Massachusetts 2020, came together in order to make investment in children during out-of-school hours a leading civic priority for Boston, to leverage financial investments for out-of-school programming and to harmonize their efforts through shared learning and investing.
According to the FBI National Incident-Based Reporting System in 1997, a child’s risk of becoming a victim of a violent crime triples after school lets out. In addition, children and youths who are unsupervised after school are at a greater risk of truancy, pregnancy, poor grades, smoking, drinking and drug use.
“We are committed together to make a positive influence on the lives of children,” said Thomas Payzant, Boston’s Superintendent of Public Schools.
It is important to “nurture and develop our children in mind, body and spirit. It is our children who are our only meaningful legacy and the hope for our future,” said Anna Faith Jones, President of the Boston Foundation.
“There is nothing worse than a child without a dream,” said Heard, who heads the country’s second largest chapter of the United Way. “We want these youngsters to have big dreams and to realize them.”
She pointed to a group of girls from Jackson-Mann Elementary School and said one of these girls could be president of the United States someday.
The After-School for All Partnership includes the city of Boston, Anonymous Private Family Foundation, Boston Foundation, FleetBoston Financial, Harvard University, L.G. Balfour Foundation, Liberty Mutual Group, Massachusetts 2020, New Profit Inc., the United Way of Massachusetts Bay, Verizon and the Nellie Mae Foundation, which contributed $10 million alone.
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