Featured Image: Slate mentor carving pumpkin with CAN student |
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Hello Friends,
This October has been filled with so many activities, events, program updates, and good news. While we are still working with many COVID protocols in place we have been able to adjust our programs to keep them open and running. As you'll read below, thanks to some amazing donors and incredible partners we have been able to continue operating our high-quality after school program with adequate staff, nutritious snacks/meals, outside groups who offer their mentorship or educational enrichment opportunities, homework help, and much more. Despite the many challenges that our students and families are facing your support has helped CAN continue providing these much-needed programs to hundreds of youth. Please continue reading to see a few highlights from this past month.
Thank you,
Your Friends at CAN
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What Is Happening at CAN? |
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Song Family Foundation Contribution |
CAN's Education programs are undergoing some exciting changes! Thanks in part to a very generous contribution from the Song Family Foundation, CAN was able to transition Laura (CAN's previous Director of Art & Design) to a more centralized role of Director of Education. This new position allows her to not only oversee the Art & Design curriculum but also ensure the quality of ALL of CAN's education curriculum. Laura's previous teaching experience and community-centered curriculum development will be a huge asset to our students and will strengthen CAN's services by maintaining high-quality, student-centered programs.
Thank you Song Family for helping expand the depth of CAN's education program.
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Above: Picture of Laura working with CAN students (2019) |
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Partner Spotlight: Morgan Griffis |
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We want to spend a moment highlighting the amazing Morgan Griffis, who partners with several 6-8th grade CAN students in her resource room at Tappan! Morgan is one of Bryant Community Center's longest standing and most supportive school faculty partners, sending packets of schoolwork home for ill students, linking virtual assignments via email, visiting our community center to study with current and former students, and helping them navigate challenging social situations during their school day as a trusted adult in her resource room. We can't thank you enough Morgan! |
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Above: Morgan Griffis at the Bryant Community Center |
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Updates to the Brick Community Center |
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Thanks to generous contributions from the Ypsilanti Area Community Foundation and the Kiwanis Club of Ann Arbor Foundation we were recently able to renovate the new lounge space at Brick Community Center and we love how it turned out! Kayla Samuels, the Director of Brick Community Center, along with Laura Amtower, our Director of Education, held workshops with the students to find out what kind of space they wanted. Overall, the consensus was comfortable. Kayla used this as the basis for her design and created a relaxing area that would accommodate our students with sensory issues. This additional room allows students more space to calm down, relax, complete homework, read, and just be kids together. There are still more renovations to come with the Brick Community Center and we look forward to sharing more as we update the space!
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Above: The new lounge at Brick Community Center |
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Fall is the perfect time for family photos! At Hikone, our Program Assistants Kelly and Tess have a knack for photography, so they came up with the idea to take photos for all of our families at the site. They set up a fall backdrop, and we have plans to print out the photos to give to the families. It was such a success we replicated it at Creekside Court Community Center! |
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Above: Collage of photos from Hikone and Creekside Court Community Center |
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We had a blast at all of our sites this Halloween! Arrowood held their annual Trunk or Treat where participants dressed up and decorated their cars to pass candy out at the Community Center. SLATE (U of M’s Service Learning and Trans-Disciplinary Education Cohort) came to Bryant to carve pumpkins with their mentees. To top it all off, our students got to complete holiday crafts like painting pumpkins through our Art & Design curriculum! |
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Above: Pumpkin carving and painting at Bryant, and trunk or treat at Arrowwood Community Center |
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Looking for Ways to Get Involved? |
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Donate to our Thanksgiving Drive |
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Each year, CAN hosts a special fundraiser to help families who may require extra food assistance during the holidays. This is just one of many ways we are coming alongside our community members to help them meet their most basic needs. If you are interested in donating to our Thanksgiving food fund please click the link below! |
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As always, please consult your tax advisers or the IRS to determine if a contribution is tax-deductible. |
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Community Action Network
PO Box 130076, Ann Arbor, MI 48113
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Community Action Network partners with children, youth, and families from under-resourced Washtenaw County neighborhoods to create better futures for themselves and improve the communities in which they live. |
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