Year 8 Update (pdf)

Year 7 Update (pdf)

Year 5 Update (pdf)

Winter 2004 Highlights (pdf)

Announcing Community Connections

Mid Term Report - April 2003 (pdf)

Community Connections offers quality afterschool opportunities for students and adults of all ages in Berlin, Calais, East Montpelier, Middlesex, Montpelier and Worcester.

Approximately 775 of our community’s children participated in Community Connections programs during the 2007-2008 school year. They engaged in academic assistance programs like reading and homework clubs, computer skills programs, physical activities embedded with fitness, wellness and nutrition learning, arts programming, natural and environmental sciences studies, drop out prevention, mentoring, adventure-based learning, summer camps, field trips and more. Community Connections programming is based on prevention best practices that protect and inoculate our youth against risk; activities bolster teamwork and self-esteem, build assets and life skills, and enhance academic achievement.

Over the last seven years Community Connections has touched over 50% of the 2,700 area school children. In some schools participation exceeds 83%! There are kids who come every day. Underlying all programming is the mission to make a positive difference in the lives of our youth, encourage healthy behaviors and decrease substance abuse. With prevention strategies central to this mission, Community Connections delivers engaging, enriching programs during all out-of-school-time periods – when youth are most vulnerable to risk. Community

Connections was started in June 2001 by a federal 21st Century Community Learning Center grant written by school and community members from the Washington Central and Montpelier It Takes a Community! who wanted to provide opportunities and reduce risk for unsupervised children after school. The organization is a project of the Montpelier Public School District and Washington Central Supervisory Union along with community partners Washington Central Friends of Education and Montpelier Downtown Community Association, which are both 501(c)3 non profits.

During its first four years, while funded by the original grant, Community Connections moved toward a fee-based business model and began to seek funding from diversified sources: user fees, childcare subsidies, grants, town appropriations, businesses, individual gifts and donations and school budgets. Our programs in Calais, East Montpelier, Middlesex and Worcester are now licensed afterschool care providers by the State of Vermont. Licensing is imminent at Union Elementary School.

Community Connections includes in its mission the intent to serve all families, regardless of ability to pay. While the organization can sustain some core programming through user fees, there are vital components to our operations that do not lend themselves to fee generation: homework clubs, teen centers, mentoring, youth outreach, and central administration