POINT LOMA – A collaborative program between Point Loma Assembly and Cabrillo Elementary School is delivering on community philanthropy by funding youth education.
Assembly and Cabrillo Collaborating for Student Success, or ACCESS, is the name of the joint program funding Cabrillo Elementary programs.
The program, which includes purchasing classroom supplies, also funded the recently completed renovation of the school’s Reading Room.
ACCESS began with a “bus driver” campaign, where members paid for buses for students to attend art classes at Liberty Station. It has since expanded to include reading and math support and other enrichment for Cabrillo students.
Under the ACCESS program, Cabrillo Elementary’s staid Reading Room, which was part storeroom and part library, has been rejuvenated. It has been transformed into an inviting space featuring gorgeous colors and travel posters, along with expanded comfortable places to sit with organized places for books and supplies.
“The ACCESS program was thought up three or four years ago to help the students at Cabrillo Elementary,” said Point Loma Assembly president Pam Fuchs, who conducted a tour of the new revitalized school space.
“It’s a Title 1 school (using federal funds supporting programs for struggling, low-income, and underrepresented students), with a lot of military kids that move around a lot, that needed improvement. So, to do something directly for the children, we formed the ACCESS Committee.”
Fuchs noted ACCESS’ premier program, Everyone a Reader, which the enhanced Reading Room is benefiting, involves volunteers supporting literacy, donating one hour weekly to help struggling readers. Volunteers also help individual students in the classroom as teachers present math instruction.
“Volunteers meet with struggling readers and coach them all year long, and the results have been marvelous,” said Fuchs. “And we have a math program where there are some tutors who go into first through third grades.”
Fuchs added that ACCESS funding also supports sending students to regularly attend arts classes in Liberty Station, noting that students also interact with artists that are in residence at Liberty Station.
Funding student field trips is another item that is high on the ACCESS program priority list.
“Where there is an opportunity for a community field trip, there is never any money for buses,” pointed out Fuchs. “We have raised money so that all the students in the school could go to Junior Theatre, the Birch Aquarium, and the Natural History Museum this year.”
Over the last three years, Fuchs noted the Assembly “has given $45,000 toward the Liberty School, and at least $15,000 for projects within the school, as well as raising $5,000 for buses.”
Liberty School, founded by the Arts District Liberty Station in 2007, aims to support and inspire local school-aged children who face socio-economic challenges.
“This is a K-4 school where each grade gets a chance to come in with their classmates to select a book and relax, having quiet reading time,” she said. “Sometimes the teachers will have programs in here because it’s a different environment than the classroom.”
Funding for Cabrillo Elementary’s new and improved Reading Room is an ongoing ACCESS program. “There will always be financial support as long as we have a project here,” Fuchs said.
ACCESS accomplishments
The bus driver fund of Assembly and Cabrillo Collaborating for Student Success program has enabled students to do a host of activities including:
- Attend arts classes at Liberty Station;
- see The Grinch at the Old Globe;
- go to Classics for Kids and learn about instruments and listen to a symphony presentation;
- attend an all-school visit to Sea World;
- provided visual arts, dance, martial arts etc. enrichment classes taught by professions at Arts District Liberty Station;
- bought and installed garden benches for the area by the students raised gardens that the Assembly helped fund in the past;
- arranged for the Air and Space Museums Mobile Mission Control Bus to visit campus and teach Robots and Rockets;
- provided volunteers to read one hour a week with struggling readers through the Everyone A Reader program (EAR);
- provided volunteers to support students in their math classes;
- presented each fourth grader with a gift book at the holiday break; provided breakfast for early morning volunteers at the Jog-a-Thon;
- supported military families with a brunch;
- provided classroom supplies and Treasure box items;
- helped celebrate Teacher’s & Principal’s Days; and
- arranged for La Jolla Playhouse to present a live performance.
