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PHILANTHROPY NEWS DIGEST
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| Name: | Leadership, Education and Athletics in Partnership, Inc. |
| Founded: | 1992 |
| Executive Director: | Brad Williams |
| Address: | 31 Jefferson Street, New Haven, Connecticut 06511 |
| Phone: | 203.773.0770 |
| Fax: | 203.773.1695 |
| E-mail: | brad@leap.yale.edu |
| URL: | http://www.leap.yale.edu/ |
| Mission: | LEAP has a three-fold mission: 1) to help children (ages 7 to 14) from high-poverty urban neighborhoods develop the academic skills, literacy, technology competence, and self-esteem that will allow them to succeed in school and grow up to be productive citizens; 2) to provide high school and college students with an opportunity to mentor, teach, and read to young people, and to support them with comprehensive training and powerful, life-changing experiences that will help them develop leadership skills, refine their career goals, and prepare them to lead the search for solutions to America's social problems; and 3) to strengthen the ties that bind families, schools, and communities within LEAP's target neighborhoods in order to create safe and nurturing environments for children. |
| Background: | The LEAP model combines a comprehensive academic curriculum with a diverse program of enrichment experiences that strengthen children's academic skills, bolster their self-esteem, and foster a wider and more positive view of their opportunities and place in the world. LEAP's programs target literacy, academic skill-building, and a commitment to staying in school, and pairs highly trained high school and college-age counselors to implement those programs within small groups of children.
A product of vision and persistence, LEAP was founded eight years ago by a group of educators, students, social workers, and community activists. From its inception, the organization's mission was grounded in the "Nine Pillars of Learning" — reading, group cooperation, science/math, self-worth, health, community/community service, athletics, arts, and technology. With these goals in mind, 56 teams of college and high school students began serving as LEAP counselors for 225 children in four New Haven neighborhoods in the summer of 1992. The successes and excitement generated by that first summer laid the foundation for what is now a nationally recognized, year-round program serving 1,300 children in five Connecticut cities. |
| Current Programs: | Every day after school and throughout the summer, LEAP harnesses the talents of over 350 high school and college student counselors to mentor and teach inner-city children across the state. To ensure maximum accessibility, each of LEAP's programs are located in a local public school and are free to all children aged 7-14. Programs are divided into three components — two academic-year components and a summer component — with additional time allotted for counselor training sessions. From 2:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., Monday through Thursday during the school year, and from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. every weekday during the summer, LEAP children are immersed in a supportive environment of learning and imagination. LEAP counselors work with children in the program to complete the kids' homework assignments, sharpen their academic skills, and explore the world beyond their neighborhoods through various enrichment activities, including camping trips and week-long field trips to cities like Toronto and Atlanta. |
| Recent Successes: | Among its many successes, LEAP is equally proud of the fact that the majority of LEAP children return year after year, and that its high school counselors have close to a 100 percent graduation rate and an 85 percent college matriculation rate. In addition, external evaluations of the program have recently confirmed many benefits of the program, including improved school readiness and social skills and a reduction of antisocial behavior among participants.
LEAP has received national recognition from a wide range of public and private entities, and has won the Children's Defense Fund's Leadership Award, the New Haven NAACP Education Award, the 1995 and 1997 Children's Choice Awards, and received Special Recognition from the Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Non-Profit Management. At the 1997 Presidents' Summit for America's Future, LEAP was selected from a competitive applicant pool to be featured as a national model for providing community-based youth enrichment, as well as for utilizing electronic communications as a tool for academic and social development. MTV/Youth Service America and the U.S. Department of Justice awarded Executive Director Brad Williams a 1999 Local Heroes Award, while recognizing LEAP's success in promoting violence prevention and conflict resolution. More recently, in October 1999, the U.S. Department of Education selected LEAP to become a national model for its new Community Technology Initiative. In addition, the New York Times, Rolling Stone, Essence, Newsweek, the New Haven Register, the New London Day, the Hartford Courant, the Connecticut Post, and "Good Morning America" have all done laudatory pieces on LEAP's work with children. |
| Web Site: | The LEAP Web site (www.leap.yale.edu) offers a good deal of information about the organization's current activities, especially those taking place at its seven Computer Learning Centers. Visitors can also browse through poetry, stories, and Web-based projects created by kids in the program. |
| Funding Needs: | Although LEAP has earned the enthusiastic support of local, state, and national funders, it continually struggles to obtain the financial resources it needs to provide quality services to low-income children in Connecticut's inner-city neighborhoods. The organization is dedicated to ensuring that each of the 1,300 children who come to its sites after school and throughout the summer have the opportunity to participate in the activities it offers; that there are books for kids to read and borrow; that there are enough well-trained counselors to go around; that its Computer Learning Centers have the most up-to-date software; and that kids have the opportunity to take field trips to local museums, educational sites, and cultural events throughout the year. As a result, LEAP is constantly seeking to identify new sources of support that will ensure that its programs are of the highest quality, that they benefit from cutting-edge research and techniques, and that they meet the evolving needs of the children the organization serves.
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Every week, the NPO Spotlight in Philanthropy News Digest highlights the activities of a nonprofit organization; periodically, we shift the focus to an NGO in a country other than the U.S. Organizations are selected, using a range of criteria, to ensure the broadest possible representation of the nonprofit sector, both in the U.S. and abroad.
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