Living Advantage, Inc.

Acquires “GRANT” from Verizon Foundation to Help Support ThinkFinity Program

Fully committed to supporting the local community and improving education programs in schools, Living Advantage, Inc., is proud to announce their recent grant acquisition from the Verizon Foundation, to support their “ThinkFinity” (www.thinkfinity.org) program.  Verizon has granted Living Advantage, Inc, a non-profit organization that supports at risk foster youth, funding to incorporate ThinkFinity an e-educational program into their current services, like Virtual Assistant Living and Educational (VALE) program, which serves approximately 300 at risk foster youth and living in foster care.   

Living Advantages VALE program allows at risk foster youth enhanced access to information that promotes education, independence and self-sufficiency.  The VALE program is currently registered with (www.thinkfinity.org) as a collaborative goal to help engage and expose youth to enhance learning and other online resources.    The ThinkFinity, program developed by the Verizon Foundation, primary goal is “To improve literacy and strengthen educational achievement for children and adults by preparing them for success in the 21^st Century.”

With many schools and related programs requiring both of these services, Living Advantage, has selected to start with the implementation of “ThinkFinity” and “VALE” programs at Dorsey High School in Los Angeles, California.   Similar to many schools in the State of California, Dorsey High has loss their full-time college and career advisor positions due to budget cuts.  The school no longer has the luxury of having resources solely focused on higher education and career options for current and future jobs that currently do not exist.  This change resulted in an increased workload of over 350:1 counselor student ratio to possibly fit in college and career options.  In spite of ongoing budget cuts, last year the African-American students increased their Academic Performance Index by 28 points.  The prior year they were the only sub-group who did not reach their target growth rate.  This task was accomplished by using the community of DHS village approach with stakeholders.  In addition, a dedicated group of compassionate stakeholders provided consistent support and follow-up with activities to help the students have confidence in them self and perform at a higher level. Additional partners are needed to support, duplicate and enhance the successes at DHS to address the overall drop out and incompletion rate, and low academic performance according to adequate yearly process (AYP).