Community Engagement

That’s the operative question for nearly 150 young men on San Antonio’s East Side this summer who are participating in the inaugural season of Midnight Basketball at the Davis-Scott Family YMCA. As part of the Eastside Promise Neighborhood, which received one of five Promise Neighborhoods implementation grants in 2011, the new league’s dozen teams compete on Friday and Saturday nights through August 4.

At the heart of all Promise Neighborhoods is the collaboration among diverse community organizations – public and private, non-profit and for-profit, secular and faith-based, academic and extracurricular – and the East Side collaborative, led by the United Way of Antonio and Bexar County, that is making the summer league possible exemplifies that principle. The San Antonio Police Athletic League organized the overall effort, but relied on area churches to recruit the players, who range in age from 17 to 23. The teams’ jerseys were donated by Generations Federal Credit Union and other assistance is coming from the Spurs Sports & Entertainment, which is investing in the Eastside Promise Neighborhood on behalf of San Antonio’s professional basketball organization. In keeping with its goal of ensuring that local students feel safe in their schools and community, $15,000 of the Eastside Promise Neighborhood grant is supporting the summer league. The new league attracted local and statewide media attention, including coverage by KSAT12 News and Texas Public Radio. 

The U.S. Department of Education, Office of Innovation and Improvement (OII), is seeking individuals to serve as peer reviewers for the FY 2012 Promise Neighborhoods planning and implementation grant competitions. Promise Neighborhoods is a competitive grant program that supports cradle-to-career services designed to improve educational and developmental outcomes for students in distressed urban and rural neighborhoods.

April 2012 marks the celebration of the 11^th annual Jazz Appreciation Month (JAM). The U.S. Department of Education is joining forces once again with the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History as well as more than 25 governmental, cultural, and community organizations to support this important cultural and educational initiative.

The five communities receiving 2011 Promise Neighborhoods (PN) implementation grants represent well America's geographic diversity, stretching from the hills of Appalachia to the shores of the San Francisco Bay. Among the core elements they have in common is a strong commitment to early learning as a key ingredient for achieving their cradle-to-career goals.

In addition, 14 of the 15 PN planning grants announced by OII's Assistant Deputy Secretary Jim Shelton on behalf of the Obama Administration are also embracing the focused commitment to early learning. "Education is the one true path to opportunity and the American Dream," Shelton noted following the December 19^th announcement in Minneapolis, and "the tremendous interest in early learning among Promise Neighborhoods is a testament to the recognition that the path begins in a student's earliest years."

(December 19, 2011) Senior officials from the Obama Administration announced today that five organizations will receive the first round of Promise Neighborhoods implementation grants, and another 15 organizations will receive a second round of planning grants. Grantees, comprised of nonprofit organizations, institutions of higher education and an Indian tribe, will put school improvement at the center of local efforts to revitalize underserved neighborhoods.