For students staying at St. Anne’s shelter, home right now is a room. 10 year old Megan shares a room with her mom and brother. The technology she was loaned by her school district, with which to perform school work, didn’t consistently work with mobile hotspots or mi-fi, and she didn’t feel motivated or encouraged beginning the new school year. Then help came-not only from her mom, who drummed up more resilience like every other parent, to become a teacher, but through a number of strangers as well. This month, Haven Housing was the recipient of a grant from the Partnership for a ConnectedMN.
Through this public-private effort, which includes Best Buy, the Richard M Shulze Family, Blandin, Bush, Minneapolis and St. Paul & Minnesota Foundations, Comcast, Securian Financial and the Minnesota Business Partnership, homework became more manageable, even without a home. Haven Housing was one of 23 organizations statewide to receive help.
Our computers were used and old and had many issues. Some of the inputs for headphones or other attachments did not work, systems were slow, batteries died quickly and updates took time. With the money provided by this grant we will purchase laptops, webcams, noise cancelling headphones, lap desks, and install WiFi throughout the program, for the first time. All of these items allow us to transform the community spaces at St. Anne’s to learning zones during the day. The webcams will be added to the desktops in the Tutor Lab and noise cancelling headphones will allow multiple children to socially distance and participate in school in the Community Room. The lap desks provide space to do school work in each family’s sleeping room.
Our staff are available to provide support for children and families as they navigate the new school year. Support varies from technical to emotional. Sometimes a child needs help logging in to their online class. Other times a child needs help processing all the changes. And other times kids need a break out on the playground at St. Anne’s Place for “recess.”
Last week Governor Tim Walz visited St. Anne’s Place to see the positive impact the ConnectedMN grant will have on our spaces, families, and learning outcomes for the children served. Haven Housing has always been committed to connecting families with their schools through our shelter and supportive housing programs and fostering a positive relationship for learning within each child. This is just the latest iteration of that commitment. While homework doesn’t start with home for every child, this support will help Megan and each child we serve try to keep up.