Ending Poverty with Education
United Way of Lake County is preparing our children to succeed in a changing world by focusing on education and building safe and stable families. When kids fall behind in school, they become frustrated and check out before they drop out. We are targeting the root causes of school failure through active educational programs from birth to graduation. We believe the most valuable investment we can make is in our children’s education. When we give children the skills to succeed in school, we provide them with a foundation for lifelong success.
Like the rest of the world, we’ve had to adapt due to COVID-19; this includes making several programs and offerings available virtually. Now more than ever, education is critical to helping students in Lake County regain their footing and prepare to succeed in a post-pandemic world.
Our Education Programming
By investing in programs that prepare children to succeed in school, we’re investing in a brighter future, not just for our kids but for our community. United Way of Lake County facilitates three primary programs to help children: Success By 6, Reading Success, and Stay In School.
- Success By 6 promotes healthy early childhood development through 6 key initiatives: Home Visiting, Kindergarten Readiness, Better Together, Early Learning Clubs, Early Learning Trails, and Kindergarten Readiness Calendars. Over 22,470 children benefited from Success By 6 programs in 2019 alone.
- Reading Success helps build literacy skills to ensure children can read at grade level by the end of third grade and improving future academic success. We achieve this through Classroom Tutors, Early Reading Success, and Science Speakers. First-grade students who received Reading Success tutoring had reading improvement rates over 2x higher than their classmates that did not participate.
- Stay In School helps youth and their families overcome barriers to graduation. We do this through three initiatives: College and Career Field Trips, Career Speakers, and Preparing for College and Career. Last year, 503 students learned about potential careers, visited workplaces and colleges, and prepared for their future.
We at United Way of Lake County believe that education changes everything.
