Mpowering Kids

MPowering Kids is an academic after-school program for motivated yet economically-disadvantaged students who attend Westbury, NY public schools. The program was founded as a non-profit with the mission of bolstering academic achievement and providing college preparation for promising students in this underserved community. MPowering Kids seeks to engage, inspire, and positively influence promising students to focus on success in education before exposure to negative environmental influences and peer pressure begins. To achieve this goal, MPowering Kids works intensively and consistently with each student from fourth grade through high school graduation to acquire the skills, habits, and attitudes necessary to succeed in college and career. MPowering Kids has worked with the Westbury Union Free School District since 2002.MPowering Kids is unique in that it commits to each of the students for nine full years (4th through 12th grade), teaching a commitment to academic and personal excellence and fostering a life-long love of learning. Our students are encouraged to develop their potential and leadership skills, and to give back to others through community service. The MPowering Kids program is conducted twice a week, immediately after school, on the students’ school campus and involves a rich source of Westbury volunteer mentors and tutors. The curriculum includes financial literacy, community service, appreciation and experience of the arts, technology literacy, leadership training, problem solving, conflict resolution, ethics, and practicing healthy relationships with adult role models. The MPowering Kids’ director communicates with the teachers of the students in the program, providing parents with frequent and current updates and ensuring that each student is working up to his potential and intervening before problems can escalate. College preparation begins for the MPowering Kids’ 10th grade students with SAT vocabulary building and continues in 11th grade with college exploration, SAT preparation and the assignment of a mentor who meets with his or her mentee on a weekly basis for two years prior to college attendance. These mentors are local residents who have professional career experience and who undergo a rigorous application process and specialized training so that they can support the students through both practical and emotional challenges as they transition to college. This includes, but is not limited to: SAT testing, the college application process, goal setting, dealing with family transitions, and improving organizational, study, and interpersonal skills.MPowering Kids teaches a commitment to academic and personal excellence and fosters a life-long love of learning. The program creates a culture of achievement, characterized by high academic and behavioral standards and complemented by a warm and caring support team.  Working intensively with students for nine years, from their fourth-grade year through their high school graduation, MPowering Kids provides its students with the opportunity to acquire the skills, habits, and attitudes necessary to succeed in college and in life.  Finally, MPowering Kids seeks to involve the community at large in an effort to engage youth in mentor relationships, philanthropic action and access to academic enrichment as a pathway out of poverty.