Thank you for all your prayer and support for the Education Assistance program we are developing. We did a soft-launch test the second week of September to get a picture of what we were needing to work on. It proved eye opening so we have a lot to work on.
I am currently working on focusing our plan so we can officially launch with a more streamlined and hopefully productive system. Online and hybrid schooling has been rough for everyone, and the Congolese students are struggling to keep up and need more direct tutoring to help them more effectively. To accomplish that we will launch a Tuesday and Friday afternoon assistance time, where students can sign up and bring their homework or extra work they need to do to get caught up. For now we will start with 12-4pm tutoring on Tuesdays and Fridays, open to Congolese students K-12 from any school system who have signed up for that week. This is what I plan for Phase 1 of rolling out the program.
We can also provide free lunches for students who are signed up each day, which will be provided through the school system that a volunteer will pick up. We will have the lunches available for the students that are signed up, starting at 11:30am, so they can be ready for their study time at noon.
Secondarily our Phase 1.5, we are planning on offering open class time specifically limited to Congolese Des Moines Public School students. DMPS is still doing 100% virtual school as they wait for the Polk County infection rate numbers to decline further. This has put a lot of students at risk to fall further behind if the students don’t have good home internet, if their parents are gone, or if they don’t know how to log on or get help to do so. If we can get a few volunteers to help supervise, we can open up for just the DMPS students to come and log in each morning. They can also sign up and get lunches, and stay for tutoring times in the afternoon as well. We will focus on starting on Tuesday and Friday mornings for the DMPS students as well, if we have adequate volunteers.
We will work on expanding the offerings and times pending more volunteer availability and commitment, but starting with these two days and times and doing them well will be a great first step to helping students who are falling behind in their studies.
I want to also be able to move to opening up ESL for the Adults. That would be Phase 2 once the primary goal of the Education Assistance was operating. I don’t want to split our attention or spread volunteers too thin to where we couldn’t adequately help students with homework. While planning and making connections for the program, a lot of ESL connections and help has surfaced as well, which is great since that is always a big need for them. The current working idea is to roll out ESL for adults alongside the tutoring time later in the day, probably late Tuesday afternoons once we have everything in place.
This is the plan, and we are working on still ironing out some of the details. One big hurdle is getting new faster internet installed at the Urban Heights building. It is a key component to help the students, since most of their work is online in every school system. The upgrade is in process, but we are still waiting so be in prayer for that. In the meantime, what I need most is confirmed volunteers for both tutoring and administrative help, so be in prayer for that. I know a lot of you reading this aren’t in the Des Moines area, but if you are, let me know any times that you would be available, even if it’s outside of the current Tues/Fri plan, since we want to expand to other times if possible. If Tues/Fri does work, then for sure let me know and I’ll put your name into my scheduling and be in touch as soon as we know the start date.
Prayer Requests:
Volunteers: Tutors, Assistants, Administration
Funding for my family and for the program
Clarity on effective plans for the people group we’re trying to help.
Favor from community support and assistance programs
Gospel opportunities
Growth and Unity through these efforts for the churches in Des Moines
Ways to Give:
Online at https://citypointu.churchcenter.com/giving and mark it as "Community Assistance" under the drop down.
Mail checks marked for “Community Assistance” with any other specifications to
CityPoint Church
3809 109th St.
Urbandale, Ia 50322
