Partners

FamiliesFORWARD is a 140-year-old United Way and Cincinnati Public Schools partner that helps primarily urban children succeed. FamiliesFORWARD staff members promote skills such as academic achievement, anger management, math and reading literacy, conflict management, self-discipline and leadership.

The private, nonprofit agency:

• Provides homework help, tutoring and music- and arts-enrichment programs. It also coordinates more than 50,000 meals and snacks a year through Cincinnati Public Schools and the Freestore Foodbank’s Kids Café and Power Pack programs.
• Coordinates field trips to area businesses and educational institutions to expose students to possibilities beyond their current situations. Many students come from socioeconomically challenging environments.
• It is a community learning center for schools, students and families, currently serving three elementary schools and one high school with enrollments of more than 2,500 students.
• It offers children a safe environment to learn skills needed to succeed in life.
• Conducts parent workshops on topics such as smart diet choices, school and community engagement, personal finances, time management, problem-solving and helping their children succeed in school.
• Helps lower dropout rates, bad-behavior incidents and absenteeism because students are more engaged with the educational process. It helps students develop leadership skills and teaches them how to make good choices in academic endeavors, health and nutrition, and out-of-school activities.
• Encourages high school students to pursue a postsecondary education through an annual college fair and college campus visits.
• Increases graduation rates, college enrollment and community involvement through its programs.
• Helps at-risk children become confident, independent and responsible adults.
• It attracts hundreds of volunteers from local corporations and community organizations, as well as parents and other relatives.

Adopt A Class connects businesses and civic groups, as mentors, with students in schools with high percentages of poverty. Each month, adopters visit our school to conduct monthly mentoring with educational activities, field trips, and pen palling that focus particularly on college & career, STEM, and life skills. Adopt A Class serves students Prechool through 8th grade, exposing students to a breadth of experiences and careers, while sparking a culture of teamwork among the mentors. Learn more about our partnership.

Bearcat Buddies is a volunteer tutoring program that connects UC students with children in high-poverty Cincinnati Public schools for weekly tutoring sessions.

The program’s impact on students and the community is amplified through collaboration with academic partners — including the College of Allied Health Sciences and individual professors of English and Education — as well as other campus partners, including the Cincinnatus Scholarship, Darwin T. Turner Program and Choose Ohio First Scholars. The program is enhanced by continued collaborative success with our lead partner, GRAD Cincinnati, which has since become a United Way Agency Partner. Other key community partners are The Literacy Network of Greater Cincinnati and Cincinnati Public Schools.

Beech Acres Parenting Center enjoys a long and noble history of caring for Greater Cincinnati’s children. For more than 160 years, this southwest Ohio not-for-profit organization has provided help and hope for many thousands of children, parents and families. Over the years, the purpose of Beech Acres has remained the same: to help children grow to become caring, capable, contributing and connected adults.

As a parenting center, the organization serves children every day, but does so hand-in-hand with their parents and other caregivers. We believe that proactively working with children, parents and caregivers together promotes sustainable change. The parenting center provides parents and other dedicated adults with the tools they need to shift from raising children in a reactive mode to one which is more intentional and focused on the strengths of the child and parent.

Cincinnati Squash Academy (CSA) is the city’s only nonprofit organization that uses the disciplined game of squash to help transform talented students in under-served communities into scholar-athletes, productive citizens and future leaders with character.

Urban squash is a proven youth development model, that combines the sport of squash with academics, mentoring, fitness, nutrition, community service, cultural enrichment and college placement for students from low-income families. Its intensive, year-round programming takes places after school, on the weekends and in the summer, and it engages students from the time they join in elementary or middle school until they graduate from college. Following an "inch wide, mile deep" approach to youth development, urban squash and education programs frequently transform the lives of their participants.

The Lawyers' Club of Cincinnati was founded in 1920 as an alter ego to the Cincinnati Bar Association. It's a small, friendly group of lawyers with a wide range of practices.

The club keeps three long traditions:

1. Luncheon meetings on the third Thursday of every month at the Montgomery Inn Boathouse, with education credits at no extra charge
2. Annual purchase of Christmas gifts for all the children of Hays-Porter School in Cincinnati's West End
3. Occasional fun social events

GRAD Cincinnati, a community-based nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization created in 2001, improves the chances of success for urban youth. GRAD Cincinnati provides academic support to help students achieve in the classroom, grow as individuals and citizens of the community, graduate from high school, and enter and complete a college education. It is specifically targeted to support over 3,500 students and nearly 170 teachers and principals within Cincinnati Public Schools.

GRAD Cincinnati Programs

• GRAD Mathematics uses a variety of innovative tools to teach math principles and skills to students starting in kindergarten. The program’s goal is to prepare them for algebra by the time they are in eighth grade.
• Research-based Reading and Writing provides support and maximizes learning opportunities for both students and teachers by using the district’s adopted reading and writing curriculum. GRAD Cincinnati academic coaches support teachers in their improvement efforts.
• Our Resource Coordinators run Community Learning Centers that use social services and parent involvement activities to help students and their families solve problems that distract the student from learning.
• Our College Counselors encourage, guide and support students to make sure no one falls through the cracks in their pursuit of college.