Progress and Plans - Donor Updates

12/23/24

Hello!

I hope that you are doing well and are set to enjoy the upcoming holidays.  It has been a while since I have sent out an update for the Early Learning Opportunity Group, but we are still working to help the children in underprivileged families get a head start on their educational development.  I'm pretty sure that you know how this update will conclude, so those of you who were sure the stock market would go down this year and shorted Nvidia and Tesla, you are free to stop reading before you get to the last paragraph.  The rest of you I am sure are flush with profits and I am confident that you will put them to good use in supporting our efforts by clicking on this link:  DOING WELL AND DOING GOOD HELPS THE CHILDREN IN THE 'HOOD.

As you may recall, we changed our model in 2022 to focus on developing partnerships with private non-profit pre-schools and other literacy and learning non-profits.  Our initial efforts to distribute tablets pre-loaded with educational software directly to underprivileged families resulted in low utilization of the tablets because of difficulties in maintaining direct contact with the parents in those families.  Technology management issues and language barrier issues at the parent level were significant barriers to success for that model.  By partnering with schools and other organizations we hoped to be able to leverage those organizations regular, direct interaction with the students and families.

During 2022 we established programs at three different non-profit schools/community service organizations:  

• The Grace Place - The mission at the Grace Place is to put faith into action, providing pathways out of poverty by educating children and families. 
• Fun Time Early Childhood Academy​ - The mission at the Fun Time Early Childhood Academy is to provide safe, quality, affordable education and care for children and parents from low-income working families and to prepare the children for kindergarten, ready to read and ready to learn!  
• Guadalupe Center - The mission at Guadalupe Center is to break the cycle of poverty through education for the children of Immokalee, FL, where 97% of the students qualify as economically needy, 82% enter kindergarten performing below grade level, and 76% come from homes where English is not spoken.  

As is frequently the case with a new program such as ours, there are a lot of unknown unknowns that surface when a project goes from "on paper" to "the real world".  During our project roll-outs, we have learned that there are organizational and institutional barriers that can impact even the best potential situations.  Specifically, without strong IT support at a facility, basic issues such as insufficient bandwidth on Wi-Fi networks and lack of general tablet management can be fatal to a program such as ours.  Additionally, the programs at the schools we work with have enjoyed significant success in achieving their missions without our help.  So, it can be challenging to get teachers to change their routines to include our program for the amount of time necessary to achieve student targets, even though there would be even better outcomes and improved teacher productivity with the recommended schedule for our program.  

As a result of the aforementioned issues and learning process, we have focused our current efforts on the Grace Place and expanded the number of students we support at that organization.  Fun Time Early Childhood Academy was not able to provide the tech support for our tablets and also was stretched in their administrative resources due to the opening of a second facility.  Guadalupe Center had staff turnover issues and was not committed enough to our program to continue with that organization in the 2024 school year.  Our goal at this time is to develop the program sufficiently at the Grace Place to enable it to serve as a model for us to demonstrate the concrete benefits of the program to potential new partners.  We have access to the Age of Learning educator's dashboard for the Grace Place and will be able to track the utilization of the My Reading Academy and My Math Academy programs in real time.  I hope to be able to report continuous progress based on these measures in future updates.

I think the best way to frame Age of Learning's programs is to view them as AI for education.  Although teachers will never be obsoleted by AI, their productivity and effectiveness can be greatly enhanced with the use of these programs and associated support systems.  The ability to drill down to very specific areas of learning on an individual student basis in an efficient and cost-effective way has the potential to be a game-changer in a field where the U.S. has been falling behind for decades.  Your support can make a huge difference in what could be the most impactful change to our educational system in our lifetimes.  

Now, because we have focused our efforts this year on one institution, our fundraising needs are not wildly extravagant.  In fact, we have only spent about $7,000 this year, primarily on software licenses.  However, because we need to have contributions from individuals other than the founder (me), I would like you to consider making a donation of $500 to Early Learning Opportunity Group today.  It is critical for you to process your donation before 12/31/24 in order for our organization to continue its IRS status.  As always, remember it is possible to give away and become richer (11:24)!  Thank you in advance for helping to make the world a better place for those families who are not as fortunate as us.  

Learn...to Succeed!

Daniel V. Szemis

President

Early Learning Opportunity Group

5/24/22 

Hello!  

I hope you are doing well.  I have purposely not been sending dribs and drabs of information on our progress at the Early Learning Opportunity Group as I'm sure that you are inundated with e-mails generally and solicitations for donations specifically.  Let me assure you that I will be prostrating myself and begging for additional money before the end of this lengthy update, so if you want to just skip to the chase and plunk down your donation without the  exhilarating details, here's the link for that:  ​I'VE GOT SO MUCH MONEY THAT I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH IT.    Or, as always, you can write a check to Early Learning Opportunity Group, Inc., and send it to: 

Early Learning Opportunity Group 

C/O Daniel V. Szemis 

271 1st Ave N

Naples, FL 34102  

So, to refresh your memory, the Early Learning Opportunity Group was established to help children in underprivileged families gain the confidence to succeed in their educational efforts throughout their lives.  Our initial, simple strategy has been to supply tablets with educational software to pre-school age students to improve their readiness for enrolling in kindergarten.  In the second half of last year, we initiated a trial program placing tablets directly with families with a utilization target of 45 minutes/week by each pre-school age child.  While that trial was taking place, we reached out to several "distribution partners" who serve the same communities which we are targeting to prepare for our program to go "live".  Our trial provided us with very valuable feedback, and our outreach efforts have produced some fantastic results!  

THANKS FOR THE TLDR, I'LL DONATE NOW!  

or continue reading...  

IN THE BEGINNING, we (when I say "we", I mean "me") thought that we would be able to just fling iPads off the back of my truck while driving through Immokalee and Golden Gate City and that the pre-schoolers in whose hands they ended up in would be so engaged, enthralled, and enchanted with the apps that they would be on them 24x7 and double their IQ's within a few weeks without any further involvement by us.  Well, that didn't happen.  What we found out is this: 

(1) The hand-off of the tablet needs to be done at the family’s home with the ELOGI rep registering the tablet on the family’s Wi-Fi network.  It is not a difficult task, but our tablet "lock-down" software can be a bit balky sometimes, making it too complicated for some non-tech-savvy families to do on their own; handing out the tablets at a central distribution point (with printed instructions) is therefore not sufficient.    

(2) It is important for the parents to schedule time on the apps for their child – in most cases, the child will not be self-motivated to use the apps which may not be as engaging as other technology-based games, television, or other activities.     ELOGI must monitor the utilization of the apps by each student and communicate with the parents regularly to encourage them to schedule the minimum of 45 minutes/week.   

(3) Consequently, for direct distribution of tablets to underprivileged families to be successful, we will need to recruit volunteers to serve as "teachers" by remotely monitoring student progress and offering advice and encouragement to parents via email and text messages.  This will be a bigger task than originally envisioned, but we believe that there is a large pool of potential "teacher" recruits among retired educators and others.  So, we don't expect that issue to be an insurmountable barrier to our success.      

Regarding our efforts at recruiting "distribution" partners, our first thought was that Habitat for Humanity would be a natural fit for us.  H4H serves the same communities of underprivileged families which we serve and screens their applicants to identify those who have a good probability of succeeding in the H4H program.  However, the local Habitat for Humanity organizations operate independently, and the depth and effectiveness of each H4H organization differs widely based on their individual fund-raising success, community involvement/integration, and strength of leadership.    

As I am in Florida for half of the year, I reached out to the Habitat - Collier County chapter which is one of the largest and most successful Habitat chapters in the entire country, having built more than 2,000 homes since its founding in 1978.  My initial meeting with Leili Walker, the Assistant Director of Family Services, led to our involvement in a Habitat - Collier community the very next week as well as a subsequent meeting with Lisa Lefkow, the CEO of Habitat - Collier, where we brainstormed on how to maximize our impact in the low-income communities of Collier County.  We are now getting applications from Habitat - Collier residents from a marketing campaign consisting of bilingual informational flyers distributed at various Habitat - Collier functions.  Additionally, Lisa introduced us to three nonprofit pre-schools which serve the low-income communities in the county to see if we could partner with those organizations.  After visiting each of the schools and meeting with their top managers, we have reached agreement to provide tablets and educational apps for use by their students in trial programs over the summer as follows: 

The Grace Place - The mission at The Grace Place is to put faith into action, providing pathways out of poverty by educating children and families.  In 2020, The Grace Place served 450 families in Golden Gate City, Florida, a community where 88% of school children live in households with incomes below $34,000 (130% of the poverty level for a family of four).  On April 19th, Early Learning Opportunity Group Directors Christina Kappes, Mary Szemis, and I visited The Grace Place and met with Lara Fisher, CEO, and her team to get a tour of their facility and discuss our mutual efforts to help prepare pre-school age children for their educational careers.  Our discussions culminated in setting up a trial program in which 20 Early Learning Opportunity Group tablets will be shared by 90 students in a summer program to determine how well the tablets and educational apps can complement the current curriculum and classroom instruction at The Grace Place on a permanent basis.   

Fun Time Early Childhood Academy​ - The mission at the Fun Time Early Childhood Academy is to provide safe, quality, affordable education and care for children and parents from low-income working families and to prepare the children for kindergarten, ready to read and ready to learn!  The Fun Time Nursery first opened its doors in 1961 as a small classroom within the Old Carver School under the direction of Alma and Herbert Cambridge. The school was 100% African American until 1965, when Mrs. Pat Schultheis joined as a teacher and placed her son, Buddy, in Fun Time. In 2009, Fun Time moved from a 4,200-square-foot, 36-year-old trailer to its current 8,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art facility featuring six classrooms, a multipurpose room for parent meetings and staff events, the Founders’ Room, offices, a kitchen, two playgrounds and a garden.  Mary, Chris, and I had a very informative and encouraging visit to the Academy on Thursday 4/7/22 where we met with Executive Director Jessica Campbell and Events Coordinator Becca Mysels.  Continuing discussions have led to the design of a trial program where 18 Early Learning Opportunity Group tablets with ABC Mouse and My Math Academy will be used by 3-year-old students during the school's summer session.  

Guadalupe Center - The mission at Guadalupe Center is to break the cycle of poverty through education for the children of Immokalee, FL, where 97% of the students qualify as economically needy, 82% enter kindergarten performing below grade level, and 76% come from homes where English is not spoken.  Guadalupe Center began as a small soup kitchen at Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church and was transformed into a center where volunteers began tutoring non-English-speaking elementary school age children with the help of local high school students. Over the next two decades, Guadalupe Center formed three distinct educational programs and significantly expanded their facilities.  They now reach more than 1,700 students per year!  On April 13th, Chris, and I visited the very impressive Morgridge Center, one of four separate centers operated by the Guadalupe Center in Immokalee, and met with Dawn Montecalvo - President, Kelly Krupp - Vice President of Philanthropy, and Robert Spano - Vice President of Programs.  Further discussions and trial development have led to a plan for Early Learning Opportunity Group to support Guadalupe Center's 6-week Summer session with 20 tablets to be shared by 60 students in the Kindergarten, first, and second grade classrooms, beginning in early June. 

We are very pleased with the status of our efforts to achieve our mission of helping the children in underprivileged families prepare for their educational journey with confidence and enthusiasm.  And, we have achieved the above in a very efficient manner.  In 2021, we raised $16,800 via donations from a small group of generous individuals and spent $5,052 split 3%/19%/77% on fundraising, administration, and programs, respectively.  In 2022, we have raised $11,000 so far, and spent $10,700, split 5%/95% on administration and programs, respectively.  We do have a significant amount of spending which will be coming due shortly to fund the licenses for the Age of Learning apps and professional development expenses associated with the non-profit pre-schools as discussed above.  So, this is the point at which I ask that you double the amount of your annual donation to the Early Learning Opportunity Group.  And always remember, it is possible to give away and become richer (Proverbs 11:24)!  Thank you in advance for helping to make the world a better place for those families who are not as fortunate as us.    

Oh, I almost forgot one other important thing:  there is a way for you to painlessly add to your annual contribution to the Early Learning Opportunity Group via Amazon Smile.  By registering with Amazon for participation in the Amazon Smile program, 0.5% of your purchases on Amazon gets donated to the charities of your choice.  If you already donate to your favorite charity via this program, we kindly ask that you add us to the list of charities which share in your Amazon Smile charitable giving.  If you aren't already registered, please follow this link to Amazon Smile to sign up and designate Early Learning Opportunity Group as one of your charities.  And don't forget to post your giving status on your favorite social media outlets to spread the word for Early Learning Opportunity Group - it is a powerful method for us to raise awareness of our mission in a very efficient way.    

Learn...to Succeed!  

​​Daniel V. Szemis 

President 

Early Learning Opportunity Group