Partnership 4 Kids recently received a 2-year funding grant from the United Way of the Midlands.
Deb Denbeck, President of Partnership 4 Kids, says the money will support things like their Book Buddy program which is geared toward Pre-K and Kindergarten students.
Denbeck says in that program, a mentor comes in and reads to the student once a month. They do activities from the book and the student then gets to take that book home.
She says in grades 1-6, P4K works with kids on literacy and life skills, with the biggest efforts going toward ensuring students are reading at their grade level.
Denbeck says Partnership 4 Kids recently completed a social return investment study with UNO where they found that every dollar that is donated to P4k becomes $2.87.
"And that is used for programming and Partnership 4 Kids has 6100 students this fall. And we start in Pre-K and we stay with those young people all the way to and through college. We are a mentoring program that uses education as the power of really helping these students get out of poverty.”
Denbeck says P4K serves OPS students in 22 Title 1 schools. She says these include 12 elementary, five middle and five high schools.
For more information, the website is P4K.org.