UMass Boston
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Jumpstart
Jumpstart is a longstanding and proud community partner of UMass-Boston through the Office of Service Learning and Community Outreach. Jumpstart is a national non-profit organization working towards the day that every child in America enters school prepared to succeed. Headquartered in Boston, Jumpstart recruits and trains achievement-oriented college students to deliver an innovative early education program via yearlong one-to-one relationships. Jumpstart volunteers (Corps members) are paired with preschool children from low-income backgrounds in the classroom setting and work together on language, literacy, social, and initiative skills for one year. Through this relationship, Jumpstart inspires children to learn, adults to teach, families to get involved, and communities to progress together. Founded in 1993 as a pilot program at Yale University with only 15 volunteers, Jumpstart now engages 3,100 Corps members from universities across the country.
UMass-Boston has been a central partner in this important work since Jumpstart’s inception in Boston in 1996. To date, more than 350 UMass Boston students have served as Jumpstart Corps members. These dedicated students have provided in excess of 100,000 hours in service to more than 15,000 children from low-income communities across Boston—specifically Dorchester, Roxbury and Jamaica Plain. In addition, many additional students and community members have engaged in Jumpstart’s mission through sponsored book drives, guest reader programs, preschool beautification days, and other service projects that provide valuable resources to children from low-income Boston communities. Activities like these provide UMass-Boston student Corps members with a meaningful way to engage in their surrounding community.
Please contact Erin Cox Weinberg at 857.413.4582 with questions regarding Jumpstart.