finally

After ten weeks of work here in the Bay Area, it's about time for an update about what I'm actually doing. I work for the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Peninsula (BGCP), whose vision is to have every member of our community graduate high school with a plan for post-secondary education or training. This scope of this vision is contextualized by a few basic facts about the neighborhoods we serve (which are East Palo Alto, eastern Menlo Park, and Redwood City): less than half the kids graduate from high school; less than 30% are proficient in math and writing; less than 10% of kids' parents attended college (and less than 4% graduated); and the median per capita income is less than $15,000. These numbers paint a basic picture of the difficulty an organization like BGCP has in making a meaningful impact on a community while practicing an open door policy that accepts any child that wishes to attend.

My work at BGCP is firstly in outcome analysis for grant writing and reporting, as well as fundraising. I'm responsible for overseeing the databases for our donors and our club members; for our club surveys for new and existing members; for our "On-Track" indicator program, for which we partner with our members' schools to collect grades and disciplinary records to help design more individual programming for our at-risk kids; and for fundraising research. These, however, are only a handful of my day to day tasks -- my position places me at the intersection of several departments, and it's the constant juggling of different projects that keeps this work interesting. Just now I'm off for a 5pm meeting at a school site about the results of their summer programs data. More posts to come about what I've learned so far and how things have changed in the workplace in just a couple of short months.