In the spring of 2020 amidst the challenges of the COVID - 19 pandemic, the Samueli Foundation came to us with an opportunity to look deeper at our most challenged communities through the lens of social mobility. While the STEM2 Hub is working deeply in the urban core, and working with the mayor ’ s initiatives for afterschool programming, as well as working with schools across the district, to cultivate diversity in the STEM talent pipeline, we saw a great opportunity to take this work a step further. We stand in unison with the Samueli Foundation: The social mobility elevator appears to be broken, and there is more that we can do to help assure the workforce skills students are learning translate into career engagement and prosperity. We accepted the generous gift from the Samueli Foundation in the amount of $100,000 and a match commitment from the Chartrand Family Foundation. We reorganized, staffed and are getting to work! We have selected two communities as our starting point and have begun identifying the key organizations and partners to work with from the community to begin understanding the needs. The two communities selected are the Arlington Area and the East Area of Jacksonville. One of the targeted communities contains the street with the highest murder and crime rates in the city of Jacksonville. These “ sister communities ” are a short ride from each other across the St. Johns River. During the first year, we will work in the areas where our strongest partnerships already exist - the education space - will continue to build into the other areas as project progresses. The first year is a planning year for community building and development, following our proven capacity building model. We will focus on building career pathways in the school feeder pattern systems across both communities with a collaborative effort across the schools that are located in the targeted areas. Year 1 will also include efforts to build and deepen community engagement and establish committees and subgroups to influence and design the years two and three projects. Space will be needed for the community center projects, and there is an abundance of abandoned buildings available for updating. During year 2 and 3, the workforce development and upskilling center will be implemented and during years 3 and 4 other community related services will be investigated and implemented. In partnership with our board member companies, including Florida Blue, TIAA, Wells Fargo, FIS Global, Alluvion Staffing, we will bring employment opportunities to the community through the development of a technology “ on - shoring ” program where we will keep work here in Jacksonville, while transforming these communities. Principles of the project will be mirrored and extended into the Grove Park area in Clay County and to rural Putnam County. We will develop and expand upon new partnerships across the region working with Read USA, the Clay Education Foundation, Lyft Jax, and the Steven Wozniak Foundation through the Woz Education Partnership.
STEM2 HUB ANNUAL REPORT ◊ 25
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