After school, kids can go home and play video games until they can no longer blink, or they can cruise the streets aimlessly. Or, in nine cities, they can hang at Citizen Schools, an after-school program designed to teach children skills that aren't part of their regular curriculum. In two-hour classes taught by volunteer teacher apprentices, kids study every subject from law and architecture to cooking and art. Since 1995, Citizen Schools has expanded to 20 schools across the country and now serves more than 2,000 children. The kids have produced 50 Web sites, written nine children's books, and designed public spaces and architec-tural designs. "The teaching apprentices work with kids to make an amazing change," says cofounder Eric Schwarz. "For the adult, it's a chance to connect with the energy that kids have, and for the kids, it makes learning real."
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Boston, Massachusetts
Alan Khazei and Michael Brown, Cofounders
www.cityyear.org
Alan Khazei and Michael Brown had a powerful idea while roommates at Harvard Law School: Recruit diverse young people to devote a year to community service in exchange for an educational stipend. In 1988, the two launched a 50-person pilot in Boston. Since then, City Year has grown to 14 sites nationwide, and 6,000 17- to 24-year-olds have logged nearly 11 million hours of service. Now, City Year faces its biggest challenge yet: a surprise 45% cut in funding, the result of last year's decimation of AmeriCorps. In response, City Year has limited enrollment to 750 kids, down from 1,000, for the 2003-2004 program--and, as of early November, it had only enough money for 550 of them. The setback seems temporary, though; Congress reinstated funding to support 1,000 corps members next year.
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Washington, DC
J.B. Schramm, CEO and Founder
www.collegesummit.org
Each year, an estimated 200,000 American high school seniors are ready to go to college but don't. Enter College Summit, which works with schools and colleges to help low-income students make the leap. In the spring, partner schools appoint and train influential juniors as peer leaders to work with teachers to help other students complete college applications. Schools then share student data with colleges seeking more diverse classes. Now, says founder J.B. Schramm, 79% of College Summit's participants have enrolled in college--nearly double the national rate of seniors at the same income level--and 80% of them have graduated or are still enrolled within six years. "The young man who is the first in his family to go to college ends poverty in his family line forever," Schramm says. "It is irreversible progress."
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Washington, DC
Kyle Zimmer, President and Cofounder
www.firstbook.org
"The only difference between First Book and business is what we do with the product," says Kyle Zimmer, a former corporate lawyer and now president of the organization, which enables disadvantaged children to own their first book. "The laws of economics are not suspended when you step into the nonprofit world." To that end, First Book has developed partnerships with companies such as Walt Disney and Lincoln Mercury. First Book gets money; the companies get publicity. The results: a "pipeline" that supplies books to after-school programs at poor schools, and the National Book Bank, which distributes publishers' surplus books through literacy-building programs. In the past two years, First Book has provided 15 million books in more than 800 communities.
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