Weekly Media Roundup: August 26, 2015

Barrio Logan Education Program Sends More Immigrants to College (KPBS, California)

Thanks to the Barrio Logan College Institute (BLCI), Mexican immigrant Sarabi Rodriguez will be attending her dream college, UC Berkeley, in the fall. BLCI works with low-income, primarily immigrant families in San Diego to start preparing students for college in elementary school, involving their whole family in the planning process. Students in the afterschool program receive a meal and work with tutors, all of whom are bilingual and first-generation college students. Rodriguez was so grateful for her experience at BLCI that she organized the supplementary College Awareness Mentorship Program over the summer to reach other disadvantaged students who couldn’t attend BLCI due to its limited resources. “We want them to see themselves in our shoes and see that it’s possible,” she told KPBS. “We want to make sure they see that (college) is a possibility and make them passionate about something.”

Lemonade Lessons: Boys and Girls Club Members Learn About Business (Baraboo News-Republic, Wisconsin)

Boys and Girls Club members recently underwent business training from Old Navy employees in preparation for running their own lemonade stand at the end of the month. The elementary and middle school students developed marketing and pricing strategies and will set up their lemonade stand at an Old Navy store on August 29. “This is an opportunity for our younger members to set up and learn about how to run their own business,” Boys and Girls Club director of curriculum Doug Mering told Baraboo News-Republic. Lemonade Days is part of the Boys and Girls Club’s Summer Brain Gain program, which aims to prevent summer learning loss through project-based, themed activities.

Prescott Students ‘Dig’ New Class Project (Cookeville Herald-Citizen, Tennessee)

Students in the Prescott South Elementary LEAPs afterschool program will soon have a chance to harvest fresh lettuce, radishes, peas, carrots and tomatoes from their organic garden. In their gardening project, kids are learning about measuring crops, the harvesting process, energy efficiency, the water cycle and the life cycle of plants. They’ll even gain some business experience by creating their own farmer’s market at the school. “The kids can learn how to sell their vegetables and get the full experience of what a farmer goes through,” second grade teacher and project head Allison Wheeler told the Cookeville Herald-Citizen. “They’ll learn to advertise and manage money, and that money will go towards next year’s plants.”

New Child Care Program to Address Shortage (Bismarck Tribune, North Dakota)

The Missouri Valley YMCA has partnered with three local businesses – Basin Electric, Sanford Health and CHI St. Alexius Health – to expand child care services for their employees and other community members. North Dakota’s oil boom is drawing more workers to the state and increasing the demand for quality child care. Thanks to the new partnership, the expansion will allow the YMCA to open a new location, giving 240 children access to swimming lessons, sports and other fun activities while their parents are at work. “Every working parent strives to achieve a balance,” CHI St. Alexius Health president Kurt Schley told the Bismarck Tribune. “A lack of child care can affect that balance. We see this going hand-in-hand with our mission to promote a healthier community.”