Milagro Foundation, Inc.

Program: STARS

Program Description:

The main objective of the STARS program is to improve the artistic potential and educational performance of low-income children. The Milagro Center's award-winning STARS Program is open to Palm Beach County's most indigent children year-round. Children participate in an after-school program parallel to the school district calendar and continue into an intensive Summer Arts Camp. As 100% of STARS families exist at or below the federal poverty level, there is a very minimal charge for the children to participate in either program, typically less than $45 per month.

Program Long-Term Success:

Our greatest achievement is our students' success. 96% of STARS were promoted to the next grade level in school and/or graduated from high school. Additionally we are moving into a brand new start of the art facility in the heart of a low income housing development in Delray Beach. Our organization has become a self sustaining agency directly impacting society by ensuring those children, who would most likely drop out of high school and be unemployed, become successful in school, graduate from high school, and are prepared for college and/or work.

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Program: Mentoring Miracles

Program Description:

The main objective of the Mentoring Program is to provide each STARS participant with a quality, multi-generational relationship which encourages imagination and positive growth through providing a consistent, caring and personal adult role models. The Milagro Mentoring Program provides site-based mentoring for individuals in the STARS Program. The Mentoring Program connects youth with positive role models. Mentors are trained to address the educational and/or emotional deficits of students; they present solutions and encourage growth in these areas. Mentors vary in age, gender, and profession and work with students at least 4 times per month, committing to a minimum of one year often staying much longer to work with their child. Mentors help students with homework during the academic enrichment portion of the program and participate in classes during the art component of the program. Our Mentors foster nurturing, supportive, and inter-generational relationships that are essential for building self-esteem in children. A Mentoring relationship enhances all aspect of a child's life and touches both Mentor and Mentee for a lifetime.

Program Long-Term Success:

1. Supports academic goals and achievement; 2. Teaches inclusion, embrace diversity, and promote the arts; 3. Creates strong individuals who positively impact their communities.

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Program: Milagro Outreach Program

Program Description:

The Milagro Center uses the existing infrastructure of the STARS Program to extend arts education and Living Values to other populations and organizations in our area. The Milagro Center does not charge the other organizations for our services as it is our belief that all at-risk children deserve the opportunity to experience the arts. The Milagro Center strives to create mutually beneficial partnerships with other organizations in the area that include universities, other after-school programs, local corporations, and community literacy, counseling, and environmental education resources. Our intention for creating the outreach program was to form solid relationships and open lines of communication with other local organizations, and to provide accessible arts programming to the children of Palm Beach County. We have been fortunate that our relationships with many of the organizations have well exceeded our expectations and continue to grow. Over the past year alone, the Milagro Center has served an additional 150 students weekly through The Haven School for Boys, The Quantum House, Delray Beach Head Start, The ARC of Palm Beach County, and Prep and Sport. We are currently anticipating additional revenue to serve many other organizations that have expressed a desire to receive our services. Since our finessing of our mission in 2004 we have witnessed and reaped the benefits of working with other organizations with similar and/or compatible missions. Partnering with organizations that share our goals but with different specialties has provided the children of each program, and the community as a whole, with more well-rounded services, meeting more of each individual child's needs. The Milagro Center stands in its vision of providing children with opportunity to fulfill their dreams and visions of a better life, one that they may not have the opportunity to conceive of without our support. Our support depends on the support of our teachers, staff, volunteers, and community stakeholders. We ask for your support in order to continue making these children's dreams a reality.

Program Long-Term Success:

120 additional students per week experience the arts.

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Program: Teen Leadership Program

Program Description:

It is estimated that as many as one in three Palm Beach County minority students do not graduate from high school, a figure that is well below both the state and national averages.  While the graduation rate in Palm Beach County rose to 82 percent for the 2009-10 school year, the graduation rate for African-American and Hispanic students continues to lag behind that of white students.

More than 90 percent of Palm Beach County's non-Hispanic white public school students graduated last year, compared with only 70 percent of non-Hispanic black students. For Hispanics, the rate was 79.6 percent.

In August, 2010 a study by the Schott Foundation for Public Education reported that less than a ¼ of black male students who entered the county's public high schools in 2004 graduated four years later with a regular diploma. The State Education Department reported that the dropout rate among Palm Beach County's black students last year was 4.5 percent, while it stood at 1.6 percent for white students and 2.9 percent for Hispanics. High school dropouts are far more likely to be unemployed, in prison and living in poverty. A study also found that millions of dollars would be saved each year in health care costs if high school dropouts graduated.  This population ultimately costs the community in numerous areas including law-enforcement, economic assistance, jails, child welfare, mental health/substance abuse and homelessness.

The median annual income level in Delray Beach is $45,000; 30% of people living in Delray Beach are African American and 7% Hispanic.  In Delray Beach 38% of people did not graduate high school and are living below poverty. The Milagro Center is located in the heart of the low-income neighborhood where unemployment is greater than 12% and more than 25% of school age children are responsible to care for themselves during non-school hours.

The Center’s programming is directed toward children who come from families living below the poverty line and are eligible for free lunches.  They are at-risk of educational failure, juvenile delinquency, substance abuse, and teen pregnancy.  Most have minimal supervision, particularly during the critical after-school hours. Many parents and guardians of our students work long and unusual hours. The majority of children served by Milagro start off performing below grade level and 68% are Hispanic, 20% Haitian, 8% African American, 2% Caucasian and 2% bi-racial.

 Our partner schools, Atlantic High School and Village Academy, are challenged by abject poverty. 97% attending Village Academy and more than 61% attending Atlantic High receive free and reduced lunch. More than 50% entering 9^th grade are reading below grade level, 29% live with unschooled immigrant parents, where English is a second language. And of recent, according to staff from Atlantic High School, many have become homeless and are living in cars. The schools are not only taxed with educating these youth they are now doing their best to clothe and feed them. We anticipate serving a minimum of 50 unduplicated youth at an average cost of $4500 per year or $86 per week per student for tutoring, cultural arts instruction, Living Values education, mentoring, and athletics.

The approach and design used by the Milagro Center has been developed utilizing the integration of 4 proven best practice models that all result in improved academic performance. We integrate 1) cultural arts resulting in increased self-expression, creativity and independent thinking, 2) Living Values education resulting in improved self–esteem, self- worth and the ability to cooperate, 3) mentoring which has been proven to reduce the school dropout rate, substance abuse and improves the ability to trust and develop positive long term relationships and 4) academic assistance that increases the odds of our youth’s success in life.  Our most significant accomplishment over the past few years has been the fact that 97% of the students we serve are promoted to the next grade each year, which we project will translate to high school graduation and readiness for college and/or work. This is significant as the majority of youngsters that come to us at risk of failure.

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