Check out this awesome profile of WIT Neighborhood Leader Loreal Vinson on AthensPatch.com

HandsOn Northeast Georgia is looking for one AmericaCorps VISTA member to serve the Athens, Georgia, community. This VISTA member will work with the Whatever It Takes initiative to develop a “K-12 Liaison Advocate” program for Neighborhood Leaders. This program will provide those neighborhood leaders with the training, resources, and skills needed to advocate for families/parents with students in the Clarke County School District K-12 system and to build capacity within the neighborhood for families and parents to advocate for themselves.

If you are interested in this position, please submit a resume and cover letter to Dawn Aiello at DAiello@communityconnection211.org. Please submit the name and contact information for at least two references with your resume. Within your cover letter, please address why you are interested in this work, why you feel you are a qualified candidate, and evidence of your perseverance in past and current community involvements. The deadline for applications is Thursday, December 15th at 5pm. For those asked to move forward in the selection process, interviews will be held on December 19, 2011.

For Immediate Release:
CONTACT: Ryan Lewis | Whatever It Takes
706-372-6762 • ryan.lewis@witathens.org

Whatever It Takes to Release ‘Athens Community Plan for Children’ on Monday, December 12th at 2:30pm

December 5, 2011 (Athens) – Whatever It Takes, an initiative of the non-profit Family Connection-Communities In Schools of Athens, announces the public release of the Athens Community Plan for Children to be held at Athens Community Career Academy (in the H.T. Edwards Complex, 440 Dearing Extension Building #1) on Monday, December 12th at 2:30pm. The result of a year long planning process, the Athens Community Plan for Children compiles highlights of the 77 solutions for childhood success created by a collaboration of over 500 Athens experts including over 70 institutional partners from both the public and private sectors.

In September 2010, the Whatever It Takes initiative was awarded a Promise Neighborhoods Planning Grant by the United States Department of Education in order to develop a cradle to career continuum of solutions to ensure that all children in Athens are healthy, safe, engaged in the community and on course to graduate from a post-secondary education.

“We will change the culture in every neighborhood throughout Athens such that excellence in educational achievement is highly valued, celebrated, and expected.” said Family Connection-Communities In Schools Executive Director Tim Johnson.

By concentrating efforts in a single neighborhood and subsequently expanding outward, Whatever It Takes will achieve a domino effect bringing the ‘cradle to career’ continuum to the entirety of Athens-Clarke County. Starting the Whatever It Takes initiative in the Alps Road Elementary School attendance zone will allow WIT to reach the tipping point of 65% neighborhood involvement that is necessary to create a genuine culture of success. This concentration of resources creates a compounding effect, changing the odds for all children rather than helping just a few to beat the odds.

The Whatever It Takes planning process included a robust Community Assessment, including resource mapping, focus groups, key informant interviews, a door-to-door neighborhood survey, monthly Community Conversation public input events, Neighborhood Leader Living Room Conversations, and more. Strategic Action Teams made up of area experts – including parents, students, doctors, teachers, business owners, the faith community, academia, the creative community and others – focused on health and wellness, early care and learning, K-12 education, post-secondary and career success, data and evaluation, safety and community stability and neighborhood engagement as they formulated 77 solutions for childhood success.

In addition to the presentation of the Athens Community Plan for Children, the event will also showcase Clarke County School District students and the Whatever It Takes Neighborhood Leaders as well as remarks from Athens-Clarke County Mayor Nancy Denson and Clarke County School Superintendent Dr. Phil Lanoue among others.

Printed copies of the Athens Community Plan for Children will be available to attendees and will be distributed throughout Athens-Clarke County. Copies will also be available directly from Whatever It Takes upon request. A digital version of the Athens Community Plan for Children will be available for download from witathens.org and onlineathens.com after the event.

The Athens-Clarke County Family Connection-Communities In Schools Partnership is the official planning and coordinating body for services for children and families in our community. Whatever It Takes is an all hands on deck collaboration that braids people power, existing programs and services, and financial resources to ensure that by 1 p.m. on Wednesday July 1st, 2020 every child in Athens-Clarke County will be on course to graduate from a post-secondary education. WIT seeks to achieve this goal by emphasizing early intervention, recognizing that parents are a child’s first and most important teachers, focusing resources in a limited geographic area, identifying and training neighborhood leaders, setting high expectations for all children, creating a culture of success, and using data to direct to policy. To learn more about Whatever It Takes, visit www.witathens.org

Interviews available upon request. To learn more about Whatever It Takes, please visit our web site at www.witathens.org, or find us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/witathens.
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Lauren Medina, MPA
Family Connection-Communities In Schools of Athens, Inc.
Communities In Schools Site Coordinator-Clarke Middle School
(706) 340-7614-cell
(706)543-6547 x 23355
lmedina@cisga.org
BLOG: http://cisatclarkemiddleschool.wordpress.com/

Over the course of 2011, Whatever It Takes Strategic Action Teams made up of over five hundred people from the community and over seventy institutional partners have worked tens of thousands of hours to put together a plan that creates a seamless longitudinal network of support for kids from preconception to post-secondary graduation. This work has developed into seventy seven evidence based solutions addressing the needs and leveraging the strengths unique to our community. Frankly we’re incredibly proud that our town has produced such an amazing plan.

Taken together these solutions represent one of the most strategic and aggressive efforts ever undertaken to ensure the success of every child in a community.

Please join us on Monday, December 12th at 2:30pm at the Athens Community Career Academy (440 Dearing Extension, Building #1 Athens) for the public rollout of the Athens Community Plan For Children. Copies of the plan will be available to attendees and will also be distributed throughout Athens and available for viewing online after the event.

Together we will ensure that ALL children in Athens-Clarke County are healthy, safe, engaged in the community and on course to graduate from a post-secondary education!

Join the Whatever It takes Community Action Team tonight (11/17/11) at 6pm in the Athens Community Career Academy (440 Dearing Extension, Building #1, Athens) to learn more about the Athens Community Plan for Children and how you can help ensure that ALL children in Athens-Clarke County are healthy, safe, engaged in the community and on course to graduate from a post-secondary education!

The premise is this: the names of dozens of Athens musicians are thrown into a hat, drawn in threes, and then notified of the results. Each of these trios–twenty-five groups in all, often comprised of strangers–will then have one month to prepare a ten minute set of music. Original material, cover songs, performance art–anything goes. Twenty-five bands each playing their first and last shows, all in one night!

This year’s Athens Face/off is a benefit for Whatever It Takes!

Athens Face/Off Founder & Organizer Jeff Tobias

Clarke Central High School is in need of volunteer tutors to help students achieve academic success. Tutors are most needed in the subjects of Math, Physics and Chemistry but tutors are also needed for Literature and Social Sciences.

Hours for tutoring would be during the following: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday from 3:55-5:55pm.

Contact Communities In Schools Site Coordinator Leo Cotlar for more information at: leo.cotlar@witathens.org

Thanks!

For the past 8 years Alps Road Elementary School has provided Holiday assistance to its families in need. We do something unique – we take the parents shopping so they can buy their own gifts for their own children. The joy they experience in being able to select what they know their child will love is worth all the effort. Last year, thanks to a number of very special people, we were able to help over 100 families purchase toys, clothes and food for over 300 children.

This year, people continue to hurt because of the economic downturn. We have already received requests from almost 90 Alps families, though it is only November. We have heard stories of parents having to choose between paying for a trip to the doctor and putting food on the table. Many seem to be on the brink of homelessness. The vast majority are single parents, many of whom have a job but can’t get enough hours to make ends meet. All are living paycheck to paycheck and have nothing extra for holiday expenses.

We need your help. No donation is too small. If you would like to write a check, please make it out to: Alps Road Elementary PTA and then on the memo line write “FRC/Holiday Assistance”. All donations received are tax-deductible. We will issue you a receipt for your records, which we will send to you along with “Thank You” notes from the families.

If you can’t help us financially this year but would like to help in another way, we always need volunteers to help families with the shopping at
Wal-Mart on our shopping day (Dec 13th).

Thank you from all of us at Alps for whatever you can do.

Gratefully,
Mary Kelly, Alps Road Family Engagement Specialist
Loreal Vinson, Communities in Schools, Americorp/VISTA, WIT