Dear National Promise Neighborhoods Coalition supporter, 

Across the country, our member organizations are delivering real results and helping children and families build stronger futures through hard work, community-based support, and local leadership. For decades, these programs have provided key services: education assistance, food access, career training, housing support, maternal care, and more—delivering for their communities from cradle to career. 

What unites us is our shared mission: strengthening families, uplifting communities, and creating opportunities for every child.

As summer comes to a close and we kick off the 2025 school year, we’re proud to share both the progress made in our communities and the advocacy work happening in Washington, D.C. This month, the National Promise Neighborhood Coalition sent a letter to Senate Appropriators thanking them for including $91 million for the Promise Neighborhoods program in the FY26 funding bill, while encouraging lawmakers to ensure this funding remains in the final package.

Now, let’s take a closer look at what August brought!

In July, the Leflore Promise Community (LPC), in collaboration with Greenwood Leflore Consolidated School District (GLCSD) principals and partners, convened a focused population meeting using Results-Based Facilitation (RBF) strategies to share data, foster collaboration, and make action commitments for student success.

The meeting began with a structured check-in and a Data Walk where participants reviewed trends in kindergarten readiness, academic proficiency, attendance, and behavioral outcomes. Highlights included improved K–8 reading and math scores, reduced substance use among youth in the LifeSkills program, and three schools receiving the Lt. Governor’s Attendance Award for major reductions in chronic absenteeism.

The Data Walk encouraged active engagement as participants recorded observations and questions on LPC and GLCSD data posters using sticky notes. Notably, impromptu small groups emerged to delve into discussions about the implications for student achievement and the effect of the LPC-GLCSD partnership. Participants engaged in small group discussions around key questions: What programs are working and why? What challenges remain? What opportunities should be pursued? This structured table talk and report-out session encouraged honest reflection, collaborative problem-solving, and alignment across LPC and GLCSD priorities.

The meeting concluded with action commitment forms where participants stated who

would do what by when, anchoring the day in accountability and shared purpose.

“We are not just reviewing numbers—we are building a culture of accountability and action. These meetings help us stay focused on what matters most: actual results for our students and families.” — LPC Staff Facilitator

As LPC enters Year 4, these collaborative sessions continue to drive data-informed

decision-making and deepen the commitment to equity, excellence, and student well-being across Leflore County.

Housing stability is a key goal of Mission Promise Neighborhood. At MEDA, Family Success Coaches (FSCs) are based at Mission Promise Neighborhood (MPN) K – 12 San Francisco Unified School District schools. Here, they partner with parents and caregivers to navigate systems that build family stability, from housing and job training to financial capability and wellness. They provide hands-on support by creating budgets, helping build credit, accessing benefits, and connecting to resources that promote both family well-being and student success.

In San Francisco, families access affordable housing through a lottery system that requires navigating an online platform and having financial information ready for qualification. In 2025, FSCs strengthened their housing stabilization efforts in schools by assisting with 453 affordable housing lottery applications and securing $66,388 in emergency assistance for families at risk of homelessness.

What’s next for FSCs? This fall, they will complete their training to become HUD-Certified Counselors, equipping them to provide even deeper housing support for the community.

On August 21, Hope Zone residents led the Get Your Bag Back Financial Literacy Summit, a community-driven event born out of the Hope Zone Workgroup. Designed to strengthen financial well-being and prepare for the future, the summit provided tools, resources, and inspiration for building wealth.

A panel of local entrepreneurs set the tone, sharing personal journeys alongside practical tips on budgeting, saving, credit, and long-term planning. Their insights reflected both the challenges and the determination of the community to shape stronger financial futures. The conversation was hosted by the Ohlmann Group and recorded live as part of their Creating The Future Podcast, extending its reach well beyond the room.

Participants also had an opportunity to join breakout sessions that explored finances, workforce development, and other community resources. These smaller discussions gave residents the chance to engage more directly, ask questions, and connect with tools to support both immediate needs and long-term goals.

The summit marked more than a single event; it is a movement within the Hope Zone to keep financial literacy and community empowerment at the forefront. Together, residents are proving that when the community leads, transformation follows.

Saint Paul Promise Neighborhood (SPPN), NAZ’s sister organization in the Twin Cities and fellow member of the statewide Education Partnerships Coalition (EPC), has led the development of an advocacy program to ignite the power of the family. The program – Promise Advocates Cohort (PAC) – was launched in the summer of 2023. It invests in parents’ capacity as self-advocates and supports skill development that enables them to act on opportunities to create change. Staff participated in a train-the-trainer program to prepare for launching and sustaining the PAC model with NAZ-parents last year.

Adapting curriculum from the national Building a Parent Nation campaign, the PAC seeks to deliver on opportunity for all – with education at the center – through family-focused policy and advocacy efforts. 

To date, NAZ has graduated a cohort of ten parents from the PAC program. The group averaged 88% attendance over six sessions with 62% achieving perfect attendance. To sustain such high parent and caregiver participation throughout the PAC, NAZ worked to eliminate common barriers by providing transportation assistance, serving meals from local vendors, and hosting children and youth programming onsite. 

Upon graduating from the PAC, parents identified the need for high-quality education, accessible mental healthcare, as well as safe and affordable childcare & housing as their top advocacy priorities. NAZ used these responses to inform and guide their 2025 Legislative Agenda in partnership with our PAC family graduates. NAZ has two cohorts scheduled this fall, each with eight parents, in preparation for the upcoming 2026 Legislative Session. 

63106 Promise to Success Promise Neighborhood Initiative (63106 PNI), a FY 2023 Promise Neighborhoods grantee, thrives at the heart of downtown St. Louis. Stretching across a 2.2-square-mile area of the Near North Side (NNS), the initiative embraces neighborhoods rich in history, resilience, and community ties. Within these blocks, more than 1,400 children grow and learn, nurtured by their families and over 40 cross-sector community partnerships.

For nearly 50 years, Urban Strategies, Inc. (USI) has championed place-based human capital development, co-creating strategies with communities to unlock potential and transform lives. As the backbone agency for 63106 PNI, USI brings a legacy of leadership through initiatives like the St. Louis Choice Neighborhoods Implementation (CNI) awarded in 2016, and its work within the St. Louis Promise Zone, designated in 2015 and more than 40 years of supportive services to the neighborhood. Despite these investments, educational challenges persist, amplified by the tornado that struck the community on May 16th.

As summer gave way to the school year, the USI–63106 Promise to Success Team reflected on a season where learning, curiosity, and care converged. Over these months, neighborhood-based programs provided more than services; they cultivated spaces where scholars and families could thrive, explore, and imagine new possibilities.

Among these initiatives, the partnership with Saving Our Children created a summer lunch program where we served 665 nutritional meals to 150 students across three neighborhood locations for over 40 days. Here, nourishment extended beyond food: it fostered belonging, connection, and community. Each meal became a lesson in care, a classroom of shared stories, laughter, and friendship, moments where sustenance and social learning intertwined.

Creativity and self-discovery flourished through a collaboration with Restoration Matters and Studio 858, bringing six scholars together for an immersive exploration in communication, photography, and self-expression. Over five sessions, youth learned to wield professional cameras, experiment with lighting and props, and translate their experiences into narratives that illuminated their neighborhoods. This program nurtured both skill and self-confidence, culminating in a final exhibit that celebrated each scholar’s voice and vision, a gallery of learning, curiosity, and community pride.

The St. Louis Promise Neighborhood Youth Advisory Board exemplified the power of youth leadership. Even as summer offered a pause from school, these young leaders convened, guided initiatives, and amplified their peers’ voices. A shining moment was the Stories and Snacks event on June 20th, which invited scholars, families, and literacy-focused organizations to reimagine learning as a community endeavor; where culture, curiosity, and literacy intersected in a space shaped by youth.

Thriving Black Men offered a summer series on financial education, meeting 11 young teenage Black males, where they are and providing tools to navigate a complex world. From budgeting fundamentals to understanding and avoiding predatory lending, these sessions grounded financial literacy in lived experience and local expertise, equipping participants with both knowledge and confidence.

Together, these initiatives wove a summer defined by learning, leadership, and growth, where youth were not merely participants in their community, but educators, storytellers, and architects of the future they envision.

Throughout August, our Promise Neighborhood organizations continued to deliver meaningful results in their communities — just as they have all year long.

The work of our member organizations demonstrates that when local organizations have the right tools and support, they can create tangible, lasting change for children and families. The Promise Neighborhood model shows the power of strategic, place-based investment, and how it transforms lives from cradle to career. Continued federal support is vital to sustaining this momentum, and bringing these life-changing programs to even more communities.

Thank you for standing with us as we work toward a stronger future for every child, every family, and every neighborhood.

For information on membership and member benefits, please contact either of the Coalition’s co-chairs:

Karen Matthews

Delta Health Alliance

kmatthews@deltahealthalliance.org

Rachel Ward

Omega CDC

rachel.ward@omegacdc.org



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