YSA Supports New Indiana Afterschool Network

In Its Bid for Mott Foundation Grant

Michigan City, IN (June 28, 2007) - The LaPorte County Coalition of Youth-Serving Agencies, a group of over 20 organizations that provide and/or support out-of-school-time (OOST) programs for children, has voted to support Indiana’s effort to create a state-wide network of OOST programs through the Mott Foundation’s grant.

Herb Higgin, director of Safe Harbor, a founder of the Indiana Afterschool Network, and Ambassador Emeritus for the Afterschool Alliance, said, “The C.S. Mott Foundation believes that high quality education can be a pathway out of poverty. Thus, the Foundation has committed to increasing the quality and quantity of afterschool programs and community partnerships. These initiatives promote systems of sustainable, community-driven expanded learning opportunities that support developmentally appropriate children and youth outcomes, especially for underserved children and their families. The Foundation's grant supports the creation of a state-wide network dedicated to research and evaluation, identification and dissemination of promising practices, professional development for practitioners, policy development, and public awareness and advocacy.”

“The YSA decided,” said Deborah Chub, director of Imagination Station Child Development Center and president of the YSA, “that our organization was the most appropriate source of support for the Mott Foundation Grant from our area.  The Mott Foundation grant will provide the funds necessary for the new Indiana Afterschool Network to hire a director who has experience in advocacy and fundraising. Our own advocacy efforts will only be enhanced by the program that will work directly with legislators on both the state and national levels toward providing sustainable funds for out-of-school-time programs. Our financial commitment will provide many opportunities for the youth of our community in the coming years."

The Mott Foundation grant requires a dollar-for-dollar match of up to $225,000 over a three-year period. The Indiana Afterschool Network (IAN), has tried to apply for the grant in 2005 and 2006 but wasn’t able to secure the required matching funds. Through concerted efforts by the IAN’s Board of Directors, which includes Herb Higgin and Jan Kostielney (president of JK Enterprises, the marketing and community relations consultant to the City of Michigan City), the matching funds were secured in 2007 and the grant application submitted.

The City of Michigan City, Safe Harbor, and JK Enterprises are listed as key partners of the Indiana Afterschool Network in the grant proposal. In the northern one-third of the state, Michigan City’s YSA and the City of Hammond are the only contributors to the efforts of the statewide network. Other contributors include the Indiana Department of Education, Fifth Third Bank (Indianapolis), Evansville-Vanderburgh School Corporation and School Community Council, Scott County Partnership and Scott County; Bartholomew County; Lilly Endowment, and Diehl Evaluation and Consulting Services.

Jan Kostielney, secretary of the YSA, said, “The IAN currently networks the 21st Century Community Learning Center grantees across the state, but it will soon be able to serve the more than 330 out-of-school-time programs which are in place in Indiana. All of these OOST programs are currently listed on the IAN website—www.inafterschoolnetwork.com. The Indiana Afterschool Network provides the necessary mechanism to expand and improve the afterschool movement in Indiana. There is a compelling need to bring these organizations together to increase the voice of the afterschool movement through the creation of statewide policy development, thus securing the necessary resources needed to sustain new and existing afterschool programs in Indiana.”

Charles Stewart Mott (1875—1973) said, "It seems to me that every person, always, is in a kind of informal partnership with his community. His own success is dependent to a large degree on that community, and the community, after all, is the sum total of the individuals who make it up. The institutions of a community, in turn, are the means by which those individuals express their faith, their ideals and their concern for fellow men."  

This central belief of Charles Stewart Mott was the basis upon which the Mott Foundation was established as a private foundation in 1926. As a foundation, they believe that learning how people can live together most effectively is one of the fundamental needs of humanity. In so doing, people create a sense of "community," or belonging, whether at the local neighborhood level or as a global society. Building strong communities through collaboration provides a basis for positive change. As the Mott Foundation has found, the most effective solutions often are those devised locally, where people have the greatest stake in the outcome. In the final analysis, the mission of the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation is to support efforts that promote a just, equitable and sustainable society.

Higgin said, “Afterschool programs are an essential part of many Indiana communities.  Afterschool programs provide safe, educationally and recreationally sound places for children and youth to grow into positive adults. As one afterschool organization’s model put it: ‘Give kids a place to go, and they’ll go places.’ We in the afterschool movement believe this. Afterschool programs provide children and youth with safety beyond the school day.  The programs enrich their lives through tutoring and mentoring… provide children with sports, arts, and recreational opportunities to help develop and hone their social skills...teach children through character development sound values, reasons not to be involved in drug, smoking, and negative behaviors. Afterschool providers believe that our children and youth are the future of America. As providers, we are helping to build a new generation of youth that will lead our nation in the coming years of the 21^st Century.”

The Mott Foundation will announce recipients of the state afterschool networking grant in August 2007.