Learn about the Summer Send-Off Project
Boise Sunrise Rotary and Whitney Elementary – A Valued Partnership
The Rotary Club of Boise Sunrise has supported Whitney Elementary with numerous projects as well as with cash grants for the last two years. In addition to the impact being observed and measured due to the Everyday Leadership program, the grant from Boise Sunrise went to a project called Summer Send-Off Packs. Our contact at Whitney is Susan Dennis and here is how she describes the program that will be enabled by the 2021 BSRC grant.
The Summer Send-Off Packs are filled with items and tools to continue learning throughout the summer months. These packs have educational toys, activities, books and physical and dietary health items that will encourage students to keep motivated to learn and stay healthy.
The focus of this project is on math and literacy to help decrease the “summer slide” of retention. Each student will receive the filled backpacks during the last week of school and this will impact all 425 students. It will also impact the parents giving them the ideas and tools to engage with their children in learning. Staff will purchase and assemble backpacks per grade level needs and the project is expected to impact ~425 students. Whitney Elementary faculty will measure the success of this innovative summer program by the IRI scores in the fall and through discussion of students’ interaction and observations with the backpacks.
At Boise Sunrise, we admire this kind of creative and proactive project meant to benefit numerous students after a very challenging year for both students and teachers. We support the aim of this project to have real impact for the students. We believe these efforts will truly leave it better than we found it relating to these backpacks and the projects and learning materials within. Bravo to the Whitney Elementary staff!
