Eastport Girls Club Launches Seeds 4 Success, Inc.
Eastport Girls Club (EGC) officially announced its incorporation and filing for 501(c)(3) status under Seeds 4 Success, Inc. The new program was launched at a fundraising event, Cocktails for a Cause, in October 2011. “ECA gave us our first $500 in 2008 and we are very grateful for your continued support and funding,” said Helena Hunter, Board President.
Seeds 4 Success' mission is to foster success for low-income families and children living in the Annapolis by securing, leveraging, and advocating for services that help ensure youth and families achieve their full potential. EGC will continue as a program under S4S. Future plans for expansion to meet the mission include: tutoring for younger boys and girls, a boys' club, and parent education and support programs.
Seeds 4 Success Founding Board of Directors are: Helena Hunter, President; Karen Feldman, Vice President, Jane Lawrence, Secretary, Jean McCoy, Treasurer and Jenelle Murph Davis, Director. Jessica Snell-Johns will be the Executive Director.
EGC's Smart Start Tutoring reading intervention program continues to demonstrate improved reading skills with the average GPA rising from 2.4 to 2.7 and with sight word reading abilities going from 1.4 grade levels behind to only .27 grade levels behind. Today, each of the 15 Girls Club participants has an individual mentor and tutor. Most are achieving reading at grade level with good comprehension skills.
Seeds 4 Success (S4S) will help ensure EGC sustainability by making it eligible for more diverse funding opportunities. Thanks to Box of Rain for its support of Eastport Girls Club and for allowing EGC have maintained tax-exempt nonprofit status through affiliation with Box of Rain.
Eastport Girls Club Needs Volunteer Mentors & Tutors
Eastport Girls Club (EGC) is actively seeking women interested in making a commitment of 6-8 hours per month to become a mentor to one of our girls.
We ask for no less than a one year commitment as there is so much for you to learn from our girls and for them to learn from you. Most time requirements can be accomplished during afternoons, evenings or weekends and will adjust to your parenting/work schedules. Plus, EGC will provide training and support for mentors.
Think it over. You could begin a relationship to last a lifetime! If interested, please contact Christy D'Camera at 410-280-2866 or send Christy an email: cdcamera@verizon.net.
Time stressed but want to get involved?
EGC needs a few more tutors this year. As a tutor, you can make a big difference in a child's reading performance, i.e., most of our girls made good strides in reading this year. Another reward of being a tutor is seeing a child gain the self-confidence needed to become an independent learner. Time commitment is minimal and requires only one hour per week from the tutor. All materials will be provided and updated weekly.
Tutoring will be held on Tuesdays from 3:30-4:30 p.m. starting September 13 at the Eastport Community Center.
To register, call Valerie Drozd, Tutor Coordinator, at 410 919-3347 or e-mail valdrozd@hotmail.com.
Tutoring and/or mentoring provide great ways to make meaningful differences in our community.
Reasons to love Eastport.... ahhhhh.... there are many, especially the people and the passion for local involvement. Here's your chance to make a difference!
EGC's mentor/tutor training begins on August 30.
Read the Capital story about the Eastport Girls Club
Eastport Girls Club Update
Eastport Girls Club concluded its second successful year in May. Due in great part to our onsite counselor, the girls have grown both emotionally and socially this year. Progress in their attitudes and behaviors are being reflected in many ways. With our mandatory tutoring hour each week, reading levels and grades have improved. One member is beaming with pride because she made the honor roll for the first time! Another girl proudly announced she made her first ever A’s!
We celebrated Mother’s Day with a very successful dinner for the girls and their moms, grandmothers, or aunts in our room, “The Zone,” in the Eastport Community Center. Our girls helped prepare the meal and set and decorated the tables. Highlighting the evening was the presentation of the special present each mom received, a beautiful framed portrait of her daughter. This wonderful gift was courtesy of Michael Land photography mikelandphotography.com. Michael participated in a global campaign to take portraits of overlooked beautiful people. Accompanied by local videographer Matt Rath, Michael, turned The Zone into a professional photography studio one afternoon. The result was 25 beautiful photos of each girl and a terrific video. See it below.
Natural from Matt Rath on Vimeo.
Severna Park Photo printed three photos of the girls’ choices for free. One was given to the mothers for Mother’s Day and one photo of each girl will be hung in The Zone. This will give our meeting space a wonderful personal touch!
Although we do not meet weekly with the girls over the summer, we plan to take the girls on monthly field trips to museums, and help them enroll in existing local camps such as Box of Rain summer camp and Rob Levit’s Arts Mentorship Academy. We stay in touch with our girls by supporting them in these programs as well involving them in local events. Our Planning Committee meets throughout the summer to plan our program for next year. Despite tough economic times, we are hopeful that our grants will be productive and allow us to continue with our current girls and add new fifth graders this fall.
Eastport Girls Club thanks ECA members for their support over the past two years. Your generosity helped enable us to launch our program and to fund special projects like our Girls Club T-shirts. Through our affiliation with Box of Rain, we are a qualifying 501(3)(c) tax exempt nonprofit organization. As we anxiously await the results of our grant applications, contributions for the Girls Club are always needed and very welcome!
Helena Hunter and Karen Feldman
For more information, contact Karen or Helena at hunterham66@verizon.net or kfeldman@jasarinc.com
Eastport Girls Club
Photo taken at the Eastport Girls' Club holiday awards dinner. Most of the tutors and mentors attended; there were over 50 people. The girls appreciate ECA's support.
Thanks from the Eastport Girls Club
Dear Vic and ECA board,
Just wanted to express the thanks of Eastport Girls Club for your continued support and particularly your recent help in sponsoring the tote bags produced by Impressive Promotional Products for EGC to sell at the recent Eastport-Annapolis Tug of War.
I've attached pictures from the event so you can see the girls selling the bags at our table on the Annapolis side. Unfortunately, we only have pictures from the Annapolis side. But rest assured the crowds were much bigger on the Eastport side! We had great success on both sides and raised funds from selling the bags in addition to selling cookies the girls made. It was also a great experience for the girls to talk to people and explain how Eastport Girls Club helps them achieve their goals. It is truly rewarding to see our girls become more comfortable with being a part of the greater Annapolis community.
With much appreciation for your continued support!
Karen Feldman
Eastport Girls Club
[Note: ECA donated $1500 to Eastport Girls Club and an additional $275 for the bags they sold at the MRE tug. See all the photos]
Read the Capital story about the Eastport Girls Club
Tutoring and/or mentoring provide great ways
to make meaningful differences in our community
Reasons to love Eastport.... ahhhhh.... there are many, especially
the people and the passion for local involvement.
Here's your chance to make a difference!
Eastport Girls Club (ECG) Needs Volunteer Mentors and Tutors!
Mentoring
The EGC is actively seeking women interested in making a commitment of 6-8 hours per month to become a mentor to one of our girls.
We ask for no less than a one-year commitment as there is so much for you to learn from our girls and for them to learn from you. Most time requirements can be accomplished during afternoons, evenings or weekends and will adjust to your parenting/work schedules. Plus, EGC will provide training and support for mentors.
Think it over. You could begin a relationship to last a lifetime! If interested, please contact Jessica Snell-Johns at 410 212-2522 or send Jess an email: snelljohns@yahoo.com.
We Need Your Help!
a message from the Eastport Girls Club
In an effort to build our library, which will be offered to give all kids in our community access to quality literature, the Eastport Girls Club is asking you to help support literacy.
Please make a tax-deductible gift by purchasing books from our wish list at Amazon.com.
To help our cause, please log on to amazon.com and click on "wish list."
When prompted to "find someone's wish list," type in "Eastport Girls Club."
From there, you can browse our dream library of nearly 300 titles, starting from as little as $0.01 per book.
Please pass along this information to any clubs, organizations, or individuals you feel may be willing to help expand our library.
"It is not enough to simply teach children to read; we have to give them something worth reading."