With the end of the current global health crisis in sight, P.E.C. seeks to repurpose our successful, indispensable year-round academic programming to reverse (combat) the damage CV19 has wrought on the academic progress of our community children.  Absence from routine educational settings all but ensures that Eatonville’s youngest citizens have fallen even further behind in the basics — reading, writing, and math. And many of our youth are already marginalized because their families, being “essential workers,”  lack the time and resources, and knowledge to invest in their children’s  learning. For 20+ years, P.E.C.’s E-WE Community Computer Lab has provided such assistance.  It is now imperative that we reopen our facility and repurpose our programming to help our children recover from the learning loss that has occurred; to provide necessary support and encouragement as a new normalcy appears; and to show them a way to become eligible to work in the 21^st century  STEM economy.

Our solution and our funding request:

1. To become a “community learning pod” where small in-person groups of students (3-5) learn together with help of a teacher or tutor – homework assistance and activities that teach, reinforce basic academic skills;
2. To offer hands on interaction via creative applications of technology such as the recent workshop, Introduction to Animation, offered at ZORA! Festival 2021 by Electronic Arts; and
3. To purchase laptop computers and the necessary equipment needed to support advanced digital activities as animation, graphic design, gaming, etc. that are “positive, fun, and safe,” thereby repurposing the facility to becoming a “Community Technology Lab Studio.”

We plan to launch this initiative as a pilot program with 15 students on Saturday mornings in September 2021. The goal is that at least 75% of those enrolled and attending regularly will end the school year having met the requirements for promotion to the next grade level.