Welcome and welcome back to New Beginnings. We are so excited for the start of the Fall program. Our summer was a categorical success. We hosted 54 children from around Milwaukee, and even Los Angeles and Atlanta.
We also began a vital partnership with the Hope School Fidelis and our neighbors in and around District 1. Principal Martwick, Administrator Parriss Hibbler from Hope and John began conversations in June to determine whether a Hope/NBAP partnership might make sense. Hope was in the process of decreasing their afterschool program numbers and we are always looking to share the joy of the Lord with families. With the two campuses two blocks and a couple of minutes from one another—and the spiritual alignment being even closer—it was a match, well, made (we think) in Heaven.
This partnership represents something far greater for New Beginnings. As many of you know, we have supported more than 30 schools in the metro area through our van and bus service and programming. We are proud of this and plan to continue this support. However, with our move to Berryland, we have also becoming increasingly focused on ensuring that we are family supporting partners to our neighbors. It is generally held that children encounter most danger within about 12 blocks of where they live; this suggests that we may have maximum impact in our children’s lives if we are a resource where our children and families live.
Our back to school program, was, perhaps for the first time a community event. Starting at 10 am and ending well after 3 pm, our neighbors “hung out” with us, the children played freely, our new families came and began the process of beginning new relationships. This summer, our community partner Ties4Guys and New Beginnings hosted an outdoor movie night which was a technological flop, but had people hanging on blankets and lawn chairs “not” watching a movie until well past 10:30.
At the writing of this blog, we had enrolled 84 children and for the first time in our history most were not from MPS. Our largest school is Hope Fidelis—one of our neighborhood schools. We look forward to cultivating these new while maintaining the old.