Programs
Our Foundation funds the following four programs, for more information, click on the links to the left of this page.
Junior Achievement
The entire 5th grade student body, about 950 students, will participate in Junior Achievement BizTown and the entire 8th grade student body, about 925 students, will participate in JA Finance Park. At $18 per child, that will be a cost of $33,750 per year. It costs Junior Achievement $40 per child to deliver the program; the schools pay $18; and the New Albany Floyd County Education Foundation will pay the cost that the schools would normally pay. Junior Achievement raises money to pay for the remainder of the $22 per student.
One of our Board Members, Diane Fischer and L & D Mail Masters paid the entire $30,000 two years in a row, in 2007-08 and 2008-09. The Foundation sends our sincere thanks and appreciation to Diane and L & D Mail Masters for this generous donation.
Full Day Kindergarten
While there has been substantial talk in the legislature about funding full time kindergarten, we cannot wait. Currently in our district, 248 students are involved in Title I full-day kindergarten and 287 in half-day kindergarten. Our goal will be to raise enough private funds over the next three years to self-fund the program until the state can pick up the full funding. We estimate that the cost to fully-fund Full Day Kindergarten for each of the next two school years will be $400,000 per year.
Mentor Mii
The Mentor Mii (Mentors get involved and inspire) Program provides our students with a caring positive relationship that will motivate them to increase self esteem and academic achievement. Becoming a mentor is an excellent way to give back; it’s free, effective and proven. The satisfaction of mentor a student through the challenges of real life situations is its own reward.
Mentor Mii will pilot with New Albany-Floyd County schools in the first year and progressively grow into a program that serves New Albany-Floyd County Consolidated School Corporation schools and students. The pilot schools are S. Ellen Jones Elementary, Slate Run Elementary, Hazelwood Middle School, Scribner Middle School, and New Albany High School.
Your donation to Mentor Mii helps create a culture that focuses endlessly on mentoring, all the while providing guidance, leadership and a greater sense of stability in the lives of young people to ensure high levels of competency and success in a global society.
Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library
In 1996, Dolly Parton launched an exciting new effort to benefit the children of her home county in east Tennessee. Dolly wanted to foster a love of reading among her county’s preschool children and their families. She wanted children to be excited about books and to feel the magic that books can create. Moreover, she could insure that every child would have books, regardless of their family’s income.
So she decided to mail a brand new, age appropriate book each month to every child under 5 in Sevier County. With the arrival of every child’s first book, the classic The Little Engine That Could ™, every child could now experience the joy of finding their very own book in their mail box. These moments continue each month until the child turns 5—and in their very last month in the program they receive Look Out Kindergarten Here I Come.
Floyd County preschool residents are now benefitting from this wonderful program, thanks to Dolly Parton and donors like you.