OUR STORY

Established in 1996, Friends of Community Schools are concerned individuals — like yourself — who believe that all children and youth are entitled to equal access to the services that will help them become successful learners and productive citizens. Unfortunately, the reality is that not all children and youth have that access. We help to fill those gaps.

Goals and Mandate

It is our goal:

• To promote equality of opportunity by promoting the health and well-being of disadvantaged children and youth who attend community schools through mentoring and programming;
• To support nutrition, arts, and information technology resources and programming for students who attend community schools;
• To support programming that promotes the health and well-being of families so that the children and youth of these families are physically, emotionally, and socially supported;
• To support community service programming that encourages children and youth to become socially responsible and good citizens.

The core of Friends of Community Schools’ mandate is to fill in the gaps in program delivery for nutrition, arts, social skill development, and information technology. All of our activities focus on the delivery, support, or enabling of programming in these areas:

• We deliver direct programming,
• We support program delivery by providing resources to others in the forms of grants and seed funding, and
• We enable program delivery by others by serving as trustee for community-minded groups or agencies whose mandates are consistent with charitable community development work but do not have incorporated or charitable status.

Be A Friend

Thanks to the generous support of Friends like you, we have contributed nearly $1 million towards many innovative programs that have made a difference in the lives of countless children, youth, their families, and their communities. Your continued support will ensure that we can continue to deliver, support, and enable quality programming for those in need.

So, on behalf of the children who, without our nutrition programs, would’ve had to go to school hungry every day…

On behalf of the parents who, without our summer day camps, would’ve had to give up one or more jobs — jobs that they can’t afford to give up — in order to look after their children…

On behalf of the LGBTQ youth who, without our scholarships, would’ve had to give up their dreams of attending college or university because they couldn’t afford it…

On behalf of all of them, and many others, thank you for being a Friend.