* Pending the outcome of our selection of new funding members these programs are currently suspended.

SchoolHelpers has been a particularly favorite project of our organization because we believe that nothing is more important to our very culture than education...especially when it comes to the children of Kansas City, our midwest region, and our nation.  The following is an overview of some of the programs and ideas we either have or want to implement to help the schools, educators, and especially our children.

We took over the day-to-day operations of a school for at-risk and disadvantaged students.  During our 18 months there we implemented many of our unique ideas and programs without letting the staff or students know who we were or what we were doing.  Our creative O.S.I.P. theory worked so well that graduation numbers tripled and this school became the 1st nationally certified alternative school in the state of Missouri.  The Missouri State Department of Education worked with us and embraced the innovative programs we implemented.  This school had faced elimination every year leading up to our arrival.  Before we left, the local Board of Education was looking at ways to expand the school and its' successful programs.  More recent and national attention has been brought to these types of efforts through America's Promise Alliance, headed by Colin Powell, and the 2009 Academy Award winning movie, "Precious" . 

Our Brain/Eye-Q program looks to take an innovative approach to the improvement of reading and comprehension skills in students.  This program is designed to improve the physiological aspect of reading and learning through simple Eye/Brain coordination exercises.  These repetitive exercises focus on increasing the capacity and process for reading and comprehending so that the very physical nature of reading is enhanced.  Similar programs have been very successful in Japan but have not even been attempted in most schools in the U.S.  Instead, these programs have only been packaged and advertised to appeal to the speed-reading market.  Our goal is not to promote faster reading by students, but to use the same exercises and technology to enhance comprehension, focus, and the physiological aspects of better, more effective reading.  Peripheral benefits have included increased abilities in music and athletics, as well as more disciplined and effective study habits.  Interestingly, these programs have made large impacts on both ends of the spectrum - those with reading problems or little reading interest to highly-scoring students.  Oprah's Angel network has successfully implemented programs such as this in the inner-city of Chicago. 

 

FamilyHelpers

Many of our helping programs overlap.  You cannot help students, kids, and children in schools, pre-schools, and in baby/child development without including "family" in an active role.  Our SchoolHelpers programs brought about the FamilyHelpers programs by necessity.  Most of these programs were geared to use public and private resources and agencies to assist families.  As an example, one of our on-going school projects for at-risk students and families involved the building of a unique cooperative network of social services, family services, mentoring, service learning, parenting skills and involvement, drug education, and the use of public and private individual/group/family counseling.

Another example was a plan to partner with a metro-area organization helping families by improving their job skills and transportation.  We began to design networking resources to help match caring businesses and organizations with each other in collaborative efforts to help families with such issues as training and transportation.

Operation Breakthrough, a wonderful program to assist Kansas City's inner-city families and youth, is a particularly favorite program of ours that has received our time and effort.