"You Read To Me, I'll Read To You" is a family reading initiative that meaningfully involves parents in the joy and benefits of their child's reading. This project is an extension of the "Joliet Reads" literacy campaign, which provided one read-aloud book for each classroom last year, allowing A.O. Marshall students to maintain ever rising reading scores despite the poverty that afflicts the student population. "You Read To Me, I'll Read To You" seeks to maintain the progress gained through the "Joliet Reads" initiative by providing each classroom with an additional copy of a selected children's book, which will be sent home each night with a different child from the classroom. The child and his or her parents will share in reading the book aloud. JCCC Foundation funds will allow A.O. Marshall Elementary School to purchase the 270 books needed for 30 elementary school classrooms.

Barrel of Monkeys (BOM) is an arts education theatre ensemble that works in Chicago Public Schools with some of Chicago's most disadvantaged students. BOM's mission is to create an alternative learning environment in which children share their personal voices and celebrate the power of their imaginations. Through the In-School Residency Program, BOM's actor-educators conduct creative writing and theater workshops in individual classrooms over a six-week period. Once a residency is finished, BOM's actor-educators bring back the stories, poems, and essays that the children have written and turn them into a sketch-comedy show for the stage. The actors then return to the school and perform these works for the young authors and the entire student body. Through this program, students build fundamental literacy skills and gain confidence in their own abilities by experimenting and having their ideas encouraged and validated. JCCC Foundation money will help fund the in-school residency programs planned for the 2004-05 academic year.

The Newhouse Program and Architecture Competition, the only program of its kind in the country, is a year-long architectural education experience that introduces high school students from economically disadvantaged communities to career possibilities and role models in the fields of architecture, design, and the building trades. The program is conducted in partnership with Chicago Public Schools and serves students in underserved communities, creating a bridge to opportunities in higher education and skilled professions that promise self-actualization and self-support. Activities of the Newhouse Program and Architecture Competition include skill-building workshops, school visits by architects, a career day, an annual competition and awards ceremony, and paid summer internships that prepare young people to make the transition from school to career. JCCC Foundation funds would cover the cost of providing six skill-building workshops free of charge to 250 students in need of learning and mentoring opportunities.

CARC is a multi-faceted social service agency that provides educational, work, residential, and support services to Chicagoans with developmental disabilities or other special needs. The "Connections To Nature" Museum Program will give 48 students the opportunity to visit five museums, which will not only supplement their science curricula but also serve as a self-empowerment activity. By visiting museums, CARC students travel from "sheltered" environments to very public institutions. While there, the students are able to experience different sights and sounds, and are exposed to new things; they are encouraged to interface with the world outside their classrooms and homes. After completing a particular museum visit, students will be encouraged to act as television broadcasters by "reporting" on their experiences. The two major goals of the program are to encourage students to see themselves as active participants in the community and to increase student' appreciation and understanding of nature by allowing boys and girls to explore their connections to the natural environment.

Chicago Commons' programs support and enhance the lives and opportunities of children, youth, adults, and seniors in neighborhoods with the greatest needs and the fewest opportunities. The Common Ground for Youth Program was established when Chicago Commons initiated a process that streamlined its community center activities to focus primarily on youth development. Program activities include academic assistance; mentoring; life skills, personal, and cultural workshops; parental involvement events; and arts and recreation. This program, which services 230 students in four of Chicago's most underserved neighborhoods, allows children to reach their full potential by nurturing a passion for learning and developing a strong sense of their identity. In addition, staff members advocate for students at their elementary schools by establishing relationships with teachers and counselors and helping the students and their families work through truancy, behavior, and academic performance issues.

The Learning With Drama and Digital Media project enhances an existing media/video program that engages students in real-life, authentic activities producing media that integrates language arts, fine arts, and technology curricula. Through this program, students produce daily news broadcasts to the school as well as other video pieces such as public service announcements, interviews with community members, and documentaries. Webster media students also videotape events for the school and school district. As they use technology, students develop skills in planning, organization, script writing, interpersonal communication, team-building and media literacy.

The Oakwood Terrace Intergenerational Project is a service learning program that provides an opportunity for children to have meaningful interactions with each other, as well as with senior citizens in their community. The program is a collaborative effort between Park School, a special education facility for students with severe and/or multiple disabilities, and Washington Elementary School. Over the course of the 2004-05 school year, students from both schools will make six to eight visits to Oakwood Terrace Senior Center, where they will present a program involving music, drama, and arts and crafts for the community members. The students chosen to participate in this project all have social, emotional, or behavioral needs that are being addressed in part by school social work services. This intergenerational project will offer these students the opportunity to develop and utilize appropriate social skills.

The Study and Teach: Student-2-Student Program will allow high ability fourth and fifth graders at Johnson Elementary School to demonstrate higher level thinking skills by pursuing independent science research that aligns with their grade-level curriculum. Students will complete a computer-based review of the literature on individual research topics of interest and then share what they have learned with the class. These teaching/learning lessons will be conducted using a digital microscope connected to a classroom computer and a LCD projector to project key images for large group instruction. The "study and teach" aspect of this program will allow the children to become science mentors for their fellow students and will encourage the development of student role models in instruction.

Jonathan Burr Elementary School houses approximately 400 diverse students from a range of minority ethnic backgrounds. Integrated into the school's curriculum is a Japanese Language and Culture program, in which each student studies Japanese three times per week from pre-school through eighth grade. Project BUNKA is an enrichment program that will enhance classroom learning of Japanese language and culture through first-hand experience in the arts of Japan. The program will take place after school for 28 weeks during the 2004-05 academic year and will involve many experts in various Japanese fine arts, music, martial arts, dance, and drama. The project will allow students at the school to acquire a deeper understanding of many cultural aspects of Japan, which will have a positive influence on their participation, behavior, and performance in the regular Japanese classes held throughout the school day. The program will culminate in a large-scale presentation by students during Burr School's Spring Assembly.

This program provides scholarships for schools in low-income communities to attend special Focused Field Trips at the Kohl Children's Museum of Greater Chicago (KCM). The field trips include 45 minutes of workshop activities on specific topics led by a Museum educator followed by 45 minutes of independent exploration within the Museum. All field trips expand on concepts learned in the museum environment and are aligned with state learning goals for children in pre-kindergarten through third grade. In addition to the actual Museum experience, each teacher receives both pre- and post- visit extension materials that provide information on preparing for a field trip and continuing learning from the trip in the classroom. JCCC Foundation funds would be used to offer scholarships to cover the costs of Focused Field Trips for 20 classrooms in the Chicago area, thereby allowing children from low-income communities to enhance their learning with hands-on activities at KCM.

Research indicates that by the age of four, children from more advantaged backgrounds have had 1,700 hours of exposure to books, compared with just 25 hours of exposure for children from less advantaged backgrounds. In an effort to address this disparity and offer young children the opportunity to gain exposure to books at an early age, Leap Learning Systems seeks to offer greater access to its lending library through partnerships with several schools around Chicago. Currently, Leap Learning Systems has partnerships with three elementary schools, but would like to expand its partnership to include one additional elementary school. Leap staff will train teachers at these schools on how to use more language and literacy in their classes, as well as help parents learn what they can do to help their children do better in school through books and language-based activity sheets that the children can use at home. For the classes at each school, Leap will offer a lending library that contains a wide range of culturally diverse, age-appropriate books for children to take home with an accompanying language-based activity that parents can do with their child.

The Leggee School/Bank Partnership is a collaboration between school and banking communities to create a series of student encounters that make mathematics a real-life experience and promote the value of responsible management of financial resources. The cooperative relationship between the school district and banks in the community began in the 1990's, when high school students were given opportunities to learn about managing checking accounts, credit cards and loans. At the same time, elementary school students were given the opportunity to deposit funds to their savings accounts at school. Over the past two academic years the Leggee School/Bank Partnership Team - made up of school administrators, fourth grade teachers, and bank officers - has worked toward deepening these "deposit" encounters at the school, thereby giving the students the opportunity to more fully understand the importance of active decision-making and planning ahead.

The Swedish American Museum of Chicago's Immigration Imagination program introduces pre-school through high school students to the concepts of immigration as it has shaped, and will continue to influence, life in the greater Chicago area. Through exhibits and interactive programs, Immigration Imagination introduces the basic concepts of immigration, including deciding to leave home, saying goodbye, making the journey, finding a new home, earning a living, and fitting into a new community. The program is designed to help students discover and discuss the basic values shared across cultures by immigrant groups then and now, and provides students with the opportunity to reflect on their own cultural identity. Concepts are consistently related to the students' own personal experience through interactive discussion and history interwoven with art.

The choices of young people from public housing developments and other low-income communities are limited by poverty, crime, and negative media coverage. The Urban Youth International Journalism Program (UYIJP) trains young people from Chicago's public housing developments and other low-income communities to document their lives and experiences in print media. Through this program, public housing youth provide news coverage about public housing communities in an accessible and open forum, develop professional journalism and research skills, and network with others who share their circumstances as well as with outside supporters, scholars, and experts. Launched by We The People Media in 1998, UYIJP offers Journalism 101 and Journalism 102 classes where participants learn writing, editing, interviewing, and photography skills as part of a broader curriculum that fosters critical thinking and analysis of the pressing issues of the day.

Recent studies have documented the shortage of women who are entering the fields of Math, Science, and Technology (MST), and have highlighted the achievement gap between boys and girls in these subjects. "Girls Take Off (GTO)" is an innovative, intensive after school program that assists girls in increasing their understanding and achievement in math, science and technology and encourages them to pursue MST interests and careers. "GTO" program partners, such as museums, Girl Scouts, the U.S. Department of Navy, colleges, universities, and local businesses, offer on-site visits, career exploration opportunities, job shadowing, and e-pal mentoring from experts in MST. The "GTO" project will be housed in one elementary school and one middle school, both of which were selected to participate because they have facilitated a very successful "GTO" pilot project this past year and are ready to advance into a full-scale implementation of the project.