WriterCoach Connection

WriterCoach Connection expands again in Oakland!

The tirelessly dedicated staff at Mandela Law and Public Service Academy in Oakland, led by Principal Robin Glover, has welcomed WCC volunteers into the classrooms of teacher John Nepomuceno this year, marking the first expansion of WCC in Oakland beyond our first school site, Media Academy, which shares its Fruitvale campus with Mandela. At Mandela, coaches are working with Mr. Nepomuceno's tenth-grade classes, supported by a generous grant from the Dean Witter Foundation. The program is going so well with the tenth graders that when the school received a grant from the Michael Jordan Foundation recently, Ms. Glover immediately asked if we could further expand our coaching to include the ninth grade in addition to the tenth. So that's exactly what we're doing. 

The goal is to add a pilot coaching program for the Mandela ninth grade in the spring. Extra coach recruiting, led by WCC Volunteer Coordinator Lynn Mueller and Oakland Coordinator Karen Larson kicked immediately into gear, and six volunteers quickly signed on to the extra coach training sessions scheduled for December.

We're so pleased to be coaching at both Media and Mandela in Oakland, and we're especially pleased to be able to expand coaching at Mandela beyond the original program launch in September.

Want to join the excitement? Sign up today for the December coach training classes!

Bob Menzimer

Double your support for WriterCoach Connection, thanks to the Dean Witter Foundation

The Dean Witter Foundation has offered WriterCoach Connection a matching grant of $12,500 to support program expansion in Oakland. This means that any donation in support of the program in Oakland carries twice the weight, up to the $12,500 total. It’s a terrific opportunity to double the impact of your generosity in support of our Oakland students and teachers, at Media Academy and Mandela High School, and in support of our continuing efforts to expand to other Oakland schools.

Tenth-grade students at Media Academy are responding to their writer coaches this year with the same appreciation they’ve expressed the previous two years, and Mandela tenth graders are delighted to have coaches helping them with their writing assignments this year for the first time, one on one. And the Media and Mandela students are hoping we will have enough funding to continue the program to the end of the school year.

 

Donors can help make it possible. Because of gun incidents and fights on campus, the campus has already been in lock-down this year. Meantime, violence in the neighborhood has forced the school to shift into closed-campus mode for the rest of the school year, meaning the gates are locked once the school day starts, and students cannot leave the school grounds until the end of the day.  But WriterCoach Connection volunteers continue to show up in Media and Mandela classrooms, sending to students a powerful message that the teachers and school administrators say counteracts what students see going on in the neighborhood.

 

Your donation for WriterCoach Connection is tax deductible, and the end of the year is a perfect time to let Media Academy and Mandela students know that they have not been abandoned, that people are thinking about them. Donations convey a powerful message about how much members of the larger community want these students to succeed, to progress beyond the limitations of their challenging neighborhood. Your tax-deductible gift makes a difference that WriterCoach Connection volunteers see in the eyes of their students every time they sit down together, one on one.

 

On behalf of our Oakland students and teachers, thank you for your generosity!

 

Bob Menzimer