Did you know that May is National Foster Care Month? Right now, in the U.S. there are more than 440,000 children and youth in foster care (Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Children's Bureau), nearly enough children to populate the entire city of Miami! This is a time to raise awareness of the growing number of children in foster care, to appreciate those who are committed to ensuring a bright future for these children, as well as to encourage more people to step up to help them.
“A child that is bereft of parents is an orphan. In the United States, we refer to these children as “foster children”, a child that is raised by neither their natural or adoptive parent or by the contributions of a specific charity” says Virginia Emmons McNaught, Co-founder, President and Chief Business Development Officer of Educate Tomorrow, a non profit organization whose primary mission is to provide one-on-one educational mentors to foster care children that are turning 18 and “aging out” of the system. “Every year, our government “release” these kids, at the age of 18 years old of our system. Many of these young adults trying to finish high school, at the rate of about 25,000 a year begin adulthood trying fend for themselves, still bereft of parents or a caring adult network. They were abused, abandoned, neglected, it is NOT their fault. Time and again we come up with solutions to end poverty and the cradle to prison pipeline as though we are boxing shadows. However, these children, our children, are well documented. We know for at least some portion of their lives they had a case manager, a case number and were a part of our state and nations’ system of care. Everything we know about this issue can be eradicated through providing these young people with access to the highest level of education possible.”
We sat down with Virginia, who is also a local mom, to learn more about what inspired her to start Educate Tomorrow, the impact their programs have had, and what’s in for the future.:
Can you tell us about Educate Tomorrow? What led you to start it? What are you hoping to achieve?
My four sisters and I started Educate Tomorrow when we were in our 20's and 30's. I had just returned from serving in the United States Peace Corps in Africa, my sister Melanie was just starting her law career, my sister Melissa who was a Captain in the US Army recently moved to the private sector. We grew up in a two bedroom home, with three more brothers, and I think we all agreed we wanted to do something for our global community because we knew how hard it was growing without a lot of resources. We all also felt very strongly that it needed to involve improving the future through education, hence Educate Tomorrow.
Can you tell us about the program or programs you run? How has it grown?
Initially, our goal was to support the school we started in my Peace Corps village in Niger, West Africa. However, my sister Melanie Damian, an attorney in Miami was representing a family of 5 boys, pro-bono, as a Guardian ad Litem, and then as an attorney ad litem. While I was serving in Africa, she had discovered that any child who was involved in the dependency system (foster care), whether adopted or not, may be eligible for tuition waivers and a living stipend to Florida state colleges and universities. When I returned from Africa, it made sense to move to Miami and help spread that message. We started on a shoe string budget with community volunteers that to this day continue to mentor/coach students into college. At the time in 2003, only 8 students were taking advantage of the waivers at Universities in the state. Fifteen years later, this semester it's over 5,000. It took us nearly a decade to graduate our first 10-15 students from colleges. This semester alone over 30 of our 1,200 south Florida students will be graduating with a college degrees. Additionally, over that first decade we realized how difficult it was for our young people to get into college, especially if they have bounced around so many times while in foster care, so we created the ground swell of support to start The SEED School of Miami. It's South Florida's only college-prep, 5 days a week boarding school for students grades 6-12 from families with difficult circumstances. By design, we serve much more than foster children, in a holistic way that supports the entire family.
How has the organization evolved? What is your organization's greatest need?
As an organization, we are always looking for ways to evolve access to education, opportunity, and close the disparity/equity gap. We seek to fill gaps in service that are not otherwise being provided in the community, and serve by example. Therein, lies our organization's greatest need; early adapters, and supporters. When we started in 2003 recruiting mentors and raising enough money to pay staff was our biggest challenge, but now we have 30 employees and over 1,200 students in south Florida alone that need help in finding jobs and housing while in school and when they graduate. With The SEED School at first it was getting the school open and running and now it's building residence halls to accommodate 400 students. When something is built and big, you can point at it and be proud to be a part of it, what we always need are the folks that can be a part of the early building stages of innovation. For example, one of the demonstration/research projects I am working on right now with only about 15 families, including my own, is what we call Global Field Academy. It's a student/family centered education project that utilizes community spaces to support the whole education of the child and their family, a socioeconomic diverse community that lifts all children and families.
How can we get involved and help?
If you are inspired or would like to learn more and get involved you can reach me at emmons@educatetomorrow.org
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