ALTRUSA

The Madison Altrusa club, an international organization of professionals dedicated to community service, recently won third place for the Mamie L. Bass Service Award for their Summer Training for At Risk Students (STARS) program.

The Madison Altrusa, emphasizing on literacy through grants & scholarships, collaborated in the start-up of the STARS program with Altrusa member Ann Odom in hopes of closing the academic gap between young children and their peers.

Two Altrusa members were in the classroom volunteering their time daily. Their focus was on teaching the students basic literacy skills such as learning the alphabet, reading, writing and math.

The program served 19 pre-kindergartners and 26 pre-first graders who were at "high-risk" of failure as identified through kindergarten screeners, teachers/agency referral, special education status and participation in English and a Second Language classes.

Statistics showed that 84% of students progressed some degree on the kindergarten screener. Sixty-three percent of students improved more than one point while several made extraordinary progress over their first set of scores.