Simply Students Fund (SSF) is a one-year project designed to raise funds for educational organizations serving students who’ve been negatively affected by the coronavirus pandemic. SSF focuses on supporting three organizations: PAWKids, which provides reading assessments, tutoring, nutrition, counseling services and more; Restoration Atlanta, which provides similar after school enrichment programming for students who have experienced or are currently experiencing homelessness; and Read Together ATL, which partners with Boyd Elementary to provide in depth, one-on-one tutoring to students in need.
“We knew that educational organizations in our city had spent all of 2020 and into 2021 attempting to reach kids, help with virtual learning, provide meals and other resources, and fill these gaps created by virtual learning,” said Becky Matthews, the founder and executive director of SSF. “We wanted to provide the practical support they needed to progress, adapt, and scale up.”
Achievement gaps in the United States between affluent, white students and low-income students of color were already wide before schools closed because of COVID-19, and McKinsey and Company now estimates that it has widened by 15-20%.
“The pandemic exacerbated every issue that already existed for these under-resourced students,” said Matthews.
SSF’s goal is to raise $250,000, and so far it has raised $74,000. The project is specifically contained to one year so that it doesn’t disrupt long term funding pipelines that are already in place when the community is not in crisis.
“There were already incredible people doing the work in the midst of this pandemic, and we sought to partner with them to simply bolster their efforts and ensure they could keep helping students,” said Matthews. “We are not only providing them with crisis-relief funding, but we are also introducing their missions to every new donor. We are a short-term project, but we hope that many donors will continue to support their work in the future.”
Who’s helping?
Simply Students Fund
Services: Simply Students Fund is a year-long project raising and providing crisis relief funding to educational organizations serving students negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Where supplies have gone: SSF supports PAWKids, Restoration Atlanta and Read Together ATL.
Where to donate: Donations can be made online at www.simplystudentsfund.org, and checks can be made out to Atlanta Resource Foundation with Simply Students Fund in the memo line and sent to Atlanta Resource Foundation, PO Box 20057, Atlanta, GA 30325.
If you are involved in or know of an organization working to bring relief to the Atlanta community during the coronavirus pandemic OR you are with an organization with supplies that you don’t know where to donate, please email us at Shannon.n.Dominy@gmail.com.
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