Festa 3-Generation Family ESL

Program Overview

FULL Family ESL program: Adults study English while their children (3 months – high school) receive pro-social recreational programming, academic support, and a nutritious snack - 79% of the adults are women. Learning English improves their opportunities for jobs. While the adults attend classes twice each week for 3 hours (total of 6 hours per week), their children receive English language immersion and elements of preschool education 6 hours per week, which helps to close the kindergarten readiness gap; school aged children receive academic enrichment and benefit from nutritious snacks. (Many of the children do not have regular access to food after lunch and come to the program with an empty stomach.) The program runs parallel with the school year from September - May.

This program was developed in 2008 in direct response to concerns of parents of our summer lunch program that their children were falling behind in school and as parents couldn't help their children with their homework due to their own language barriers, illiteracy, lack of education, difficult work schedules and/or lack of technology in their homes.

Cost Info