Students impacted: 381
Volunteers: 15
Duration of partnership: 8 years

Neighbors @ Hawkins is a community-rooted program created by Ekklesia Hattiesburg Ministries. The program's mission is to help provide a quality education for all students by direct tutoring, volunteering and connecting financial resources to classroom needs. The Neighbors @ Hawkins program also has provided a full-time Program Coordinator to work at Hawkins to coordinate volunteer efforts and partnered with America Reads Mississippi to hire four full-time AmeriCorps tutors.

Activities:

• Partnership programs supported by 30 regular volunteers, 15 active student mentors and four active church partnerships.
• Small-group after-school tutoring for students
• Mentoring, book reading, tutoring, assisting with assignments.
• Volunteers help teachers by filing papers, decorating bulletin boards, making copies.
• Support for fall festival, school dances, field day, summer camp, honor roll recognition

Impacts:

• Decrease in students reading below grade level based on mid-year data.
• Several students moved from basic to proficiency range based on NWEA data
• Increase in student scores in areas where providers have served: 30 percent of students in third grade advanced on NWEA in Language Arts and Mathematics.
• In Language Arts, 22 fourth graders and 14 fifth graders showed significant gains.
• In Mathematics, 28 fourth graders and 8 fifth graders showed significant gains.