United Way awards grant to AWC Foundation

Programs aimed at sharpening students’ math skills

Earlier this month, the United Way of Yuma County awarded a $10,000 grant to the Arizona Western College Foundation in order to fund two programs aimed at sharpening students’ math skills.

The grant was decided on by a panel of volunteers from different areas of the Yuma community, and now both the Gadsden Math Project and AWC’s Math Works Summer Boot Camp will benefit from an infusion of funds from the nonprofit organization.

“Our mission is to break the cycle of poverty,” said United Way of Yuma County CEO Karina Jones. “And we believe that education is one of those tools that can break the cycle of poverty.

“So the fact their… program revolves around education and is all about education, we thought it was just a win-win and completely fit in with our mission.”

The Math Works Summer Boot Camp, a summerlong program for students who take Arizona Western College’s ACCUPLACER test and are labeled as “developmental” in the subject, allows students coming into college to get back up to speed, according to The AWC Foundation’s Director of Institutional Advancement Renee Smith.

“A lot of them, it’s one thing or another that they may have missed in high school,” Smith said. “But instead of having to take an entire semester of math, they really just need a refresher.”

According to a release from AWC, over half of the program’s participants since its inception two years ago have been able to improve their test scores enough to place into college-level math courses. This summer, two different camps served more than two dozen students.

The Gadsden Math Project, on the other hand, focuses on middle schoolaged students, providing them access to college-level math courses.

The infusion of money from the United Way of Yuma will be paying for tuition scholarships for students, instructor pay, fees and other costs associated with the program.

Jones said that one of the reasons that the AWC Foundation stood out to the United Way of Yuma County as a grant recipient was their work in Gadsden and South Yuma County.

“I mean, our name is United Way of Yuma County, but I think oftentimes South County… gets forgotten,” she said. “So it’s great that they’re able to reach South County.”

Done through a partnership between the Gadsden Elementary School District and AWC, the program began in 2007, and since then more than 1,300 students have passed through it.

An overwhelming majority of the program’s alumni have gone on to graduate high school and attend college, according to Smith.

A former middle school teacher herself, Smith said that introducing kids to higher-level math can go a long way in keeping them engaged and thinking about what their education will look like down the road.

“I taught middle school math, so I get it. When you’re teaching these kids and they’re saying, ‘Why do I need to know this?’ You know, they don’t get it in middle school,” she said. “But they need the exposure, and they need that experience of success that will carry into high school.

“I think it’s important in middle school that they start getting that it’s a college-going culture, that they get that expectation that, you know, you’re going to go to college, you’re going to be taking these classes, you will be successful.”