EDUCATION
Education in the District is Moving Forward
On Thursday, Sept. 3, a host of volunteers from CarMax and KaBoom! spent the day building a playground for students who attend the Achievement Prep Public Charter School in Southeast. /Photo by Roy Lewis
Southeast Youth Get New Playground By Sarafina Wright WI Staff Writer Children attending Achievement Prep Wahler Place Middle Campus in Southeast will now have a brand new state of the art playground to enjoy courtesy of a few good companies that care. KaBOOM! and the CarMax Foundation came together with 225 employees for a day of service in the blazing sun to give hundreds of deserving youngsters a playground to learn, explore and socialize on Thursday, September 3. “The school had an existing playground that was 15 years old,” Eilah Brown, project manager for KaBOOM! said. “It needed improvements, as far as looks and safety updates.” Achievement Prep, a high-achieving public charter school network with campuses located in Ward 8, started the process of redeveloping their Wahler Place Campus to better serve the needs of their 730 scholars, ranging from grades Kindergarten through 8. “We came eight weeks ago to determine what the playground needed. The students got to pick which design they wanted at a special design event in July,” Brown said. “It’s all about the investment, we want the community to actually have ownership and the opportunity to come to a safe place.” KaBOOM!, a national non-profit that specializes in providing quality play areas for children in poverty has collaborated with partners to build, open and improve 16,300 playgrounds since 1996. The CarMax Foundation and KaBOOM! have a $4.1 million partnership that will build 30 playgrounds across the U.S. by the end of 2015, giving more than 100,000 children the oppor-
tunity for safe healthy play. “I think our associates are very passionate about service in their communities,” said Leslie Parpart, manager of community relations at CarMax. “We always have an overwhelming response from our employees who want to volunteer for a great cause.” The CarMax Foundation serves as the philanthropic arm of CarMax where staff members get the opportunity to donate their time to causes where they live and work. “Giving back does great things for the givers and receivers. Many of our volunteers are the same people and they keep coming back because they enjoy it,” Parpart said. This group of CarMax volunteers came from the D.C., Maryland, Virginia and Baltimore stores. “We hope and believe our efforts are a catalyst for change and positivity and this space will be used as a community gathering place,” Parpart said. Majic 102.3 R&B radio station broadcasted live for six hours keeping the volunteers alert and energized with the latest tunes. “Majic is about being out in the community to promote good and positivity,” Jasmine Pridgent, Radio One promotions assistant said. “No matter what neighborhood children live in they should have a safe place to play.” CarMax sales consultant, Greg Lucas, feels joy from volunteering his time. “This is definitely worth the time giving back to kids,” Lucas said. “It’s important as a community for them to have playtime.” “I have a son myself, so I know how this play area will affect them in a positive way.”WI
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Herbert R. Tillery, Executive Director – College Success Foundation – District of Columbia
Michael P. Akin, Chairman, Board of Directors, Greater Washington Urban League
Children in our city have just started back to school, and it’s time to celebrate the significant strides forward we’ve made in recent years. Let’s say it clearly: Education in the District of Columbia is improving, and there remains much to do. It takes a community to serve our children, and these improvements do not happen by accident. Rather, they stem from hard work and growing recognition that lasting change can only occur when we ALL pitch in. We are blessed with some truly committed education leaders in our great city, but they can’t do this alone. That is where Raise DC comes in. Raise DC is an unprecedented publicprivate collaboration of civic, nonprofit, business, and government leaders with the unified vision of improving public education for all children in the District of Columbia. When the Captains of Education sit at a table with the Captains of Industry, and Non-profit Leaders sit alongside Foundation Funders – and all are informed by a vast series of “Change Network” partners who are deeply embedded in every corner of DC – this is when real and lasting change starts to become possible. Raise DC brings people and organizations together. By emphasizing hard, factual data and numbers, Raise DC tracks changes and monitors real solutions. It’s not enough to want to make a difference – we need to measure whether we’re actually making a difference. We must know that which we wish to change. The Raise DC Progress Report – released just this week – is a continuation of this commitment, showing us what’s changed (and – importantly – what hasn’t) in our city’s education system in the two years since the last report. We encourage you to review the progress report at www.raisedc.org/ progressreport. Our organizations – the Greater Washington Urban League and the College Success Foundation – work every day to improve educational outcomes for children in our city, and we are grateful for the work of Raise DC. It is a privilege to serve on its Leadership Council. We are all doing the best we can for our city’s children, and the Raise DC Progress Report helps us do it better. There is data in this report that shows real improvement in our key success indicators, and there is plenty of data that shows how far we as a city still have to go. We must take pride in these improvements. Likewise, we must not shy away from the challenges. This is hard work. It is slow work. It is often frustrating and messy work. But it is also critically important work, and it must succeed if we – together – are to truly raise DC. The Washington Informer
Sept 10 - Sept 16, 2015
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