By Sierra Wagner, SOWA's Expanded Learning Opportunities Vista
Washington is ranked 25thhungriest state in the nation with 1 in 5 kids in our state living in a household that struggles to put food on the table. Food insecurity refers to households that lack available financial resources for food or may have to make trade-offs between basic needs and buying adequate nutritious food¹. Hunger can create obstacles to learning and growing.Afterschool and summer mealsare a critical component of keeping children and youth all across our state full, healthy, and ready to learn.
School has let out, and for youth attending the Bureau of Fearless Ideas (BFI) in Seattle, they enter their afterschool program in style: teleporting. A non-profit writing and communication center, BFI draws youth from all over the city with an office in the Greenwood neighborhood and a more recently opened space at Yesler Terrace. The Greenwood space is co-located with the Greenwood Space Travel Supply Co., a store selling the “finest space travel supplies” including a variety of games, and other fun materials whose sales support BFI’s services.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) proposed a change to the Public Charge rule in relation to immigration. The new proposed rule expands the criteria significantly in a way that will “make it harder for many immigrants to obtain legal permanent residency (green cards)” (PIF-WA FactSheet, 2018). Between October 10th and December 10th, ANYONE can comment on the proposed rule in the Federal Register. The Protecting Immigrant Families Coalition of Washington has set up an easy comment portalfor people to choose a template comment to personalize and submit directly to the Federal Register.
Happy Lights On Afterschool Day! Thank you to Washington State Governor Jay Inslee for declaring October 25, 2018 Light On Afterschool Day in Washington State. Governor Inslee, along with many other community leaders, afterschool providers, families, and young people are acknowledging and celebrating the importance of afterschool programs today in keeping kids safe, inspiring them to learn, and helping working families.
It’s an exciting time for theBest Starts for Kids Out-of-School Timeteam at SOWA as grantees have launched their programs and we are fully underway supporting all the incredible organizations serving youth in King County!
As a refresher, in the grantmaking process, applicants were offered options regarding their implementation timing, and the levels of quality supports that would be provided by SOWA, as they developed their plans for BSK funded out-of-school-time programming. The grantees are organized into what we call Phase One and Phase Two.