Program spotlight: After-School All-Stars standing with students and working families

“This crisis has changed many things about what our daily lives look like as program providers but one thing that hasn’t changed is our commitment to implementing creative, collaborative ways to serve our students and families. Right now, we are doing everything we can to slow the spread of the virus, and our focus is on providing food to our families and virtual program to our students. We look forward to the day when they can get back to school.” - Ben Paul, President & CEO, After-School All-Stars

After-School All-Stars is a free afterschool program that serves over 90,000 kids in 13 states and 60 cities across the country.

In response to Covid-19, After-School All-Stars’ school-based programs shut down as districts closed and communities move to shelter in place. After-School All-Stars (ASAS) quickly pivoted their programming to focus on meeting the immediate needs of students and families that were quickly arising from the crisis. Mere days after the schools closed, ASAS solidified their new approach of focusing on food assistance and virtual learning experiences and began implementing the program, #HappyAtHome.

After-School All-Stars began implementing #HappyAtHome by teaming up with Arnold Schwarzenegger and TikTok, the short-form video platform, to kick off their food assistance program. ASAS serves families who have fragile financial safety nets, and the current crisis has exacerbated this vulnerability as families struggle with reduced hours and job loss. Eighty-two percent of ASAS families rely on the Federal Free and Reduced Meal Program, and the school closures have made it difficult for families to ensure that their students get the breakfasts, lunches, and snacks that they ordinarily get at school.

Through the food assistance program, ASAS can help offset the cost of those meals, as well as the cost of dinners and weekend meals that families are struggling to provide. TikTok pledged to donate $3M and match up to $1M in employee donations to #HappyAtHome so that ASAS can provide millions of meals to families across the U.S. ASAS is piloting the food assistance program in some of the areas most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, including Puget Sound, New York, New Jersey, and Los Angeles. The response so far has been tremendous from families and school administrators who’ve expressed their gratitude for the program. ASAS is also actively seeking new partners join their work, including grocery chains and other food production companies. Safeway, for instance, has stepped up in Puget Sound to supplement the seed gift from TikTok, and Applegate, already a long-tome partner, is also getting involved by providing food, funding, and other critical resources. ASAS will continue to roll out the food assistance program in the coming weeks to new cities.

After-School All-Stars has also rolled out #HappyAtHome virtual learning programming designed to complement the efforts of ASAS’ school and district partners, focusing on the mental and physical well-being of their students. As with the food assistance program, ASAS has been piloting virtual learning in the hardest cities and is fine tuning the best practices and learnings before a national roll out. In New Jersey, the ASAS team hit the ground running and to date, is offering virtual programs in tutoring, cooking, sign language classes, arts, Beats and Rhymes in the Studio, Weird Science, and Dance and Fitness. Just this past week, DJ Ali Shaheed Muhammad from A Tribe Called Quest joined students during their Beats and Rhymes in the Studio program hour, where students had the opportunity to ask career and life advice and show off some beats they had created with lyrics aimed at reminding community members to stay indoors.

In New York, another hard-hit community that ASAS serves, one entrepreneurial staff member in even devised a Harry Potter themed daily read along. What started as a simple book reading, rapidly involved into an integrated learning opportunity, with everything from a word of the day to a drawing prompt. 

The crisis has compelled afterschool program providers to take stock of their missions, assess their relevancy in light of emerging community needs, and adapt their skills and resources to address their constituents most pressing concerns. After-School All-Stars has ensured that their mission of keeping kids safe and healthy is relevant during the current crisis and that as an organization, ASAS is poised to serve students and communities for many more years to come.

For updates:
https://afterschoolallstars.org
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