Smart Matters

Smart Matters seeks to prepare elementary children for school and educate and involve parents in their child's school readiness. To accomplish this goal, we have three main objectives:

Foster Positive Relations Between Schools and Parents
Improve Family Literacy
Equip Parents and Children with Materials and Support Needed to Ensure School Readiness

In addition, Smart Matters has several tenets that support our overall goal. These beliefs guide every decision we make from the time we first designed the Smart Matters initiative until now, as we continually make improvements to the program.

All children deserve an equal opportunity to reach their full potential for learning, good health, and social well-being.
A parent or guardian is the child's first and most influential teacher.
Child development and education efforts that successfully include parents/guardians and families will be the most effective and have the greatest long-term impact.
Children should be reared and protected in loving, nurturing, and safe environments
All children should have access to quality child care.
All children should receive and their parents should be aware of the importance of quality health care.
Family literacy has a substantial impact on a child's school readiness.
A parent's educational level and ability to provide support for his/her family impacts a child's preparedness.
All segments of the community must cooperate in these readiness efforts.

Smart Start

Smart Start kicks off the school year with excitement! The event takes place at a school, so that we celebrate the school, making learning fun and encourage parents to find a way to get involved. Smart Start is free to all students and their families at their host school. The event addresses the core components of Smart Matters - promote literacy and reading, provide health and safety information, and help parents get involved in the schools and in their children's lives.

Smart STARS

Smart STARS (Students Targeted at Reaching Success) works one-on-one with first graders during the school year. This program builds a relationship, while also building reading skills and a home library for the children, by meeting three times a month on a flexible schedule during the school day. Throughout the year, our Smart STARS volunteers gather to share information and learn from each other to make a difference in the lives of these children.

ABCs

Twice a year, families from our Smart Matters schools are invited to our ABCs day of shopping at Wal-Mart, where they receive an Apple and choose a Book, Coat, Shoes, and Socks. Our popular event takes place in the fall and spring to allow children to select the clothes and shoes they need for year-round weather.

Smart Supplies

For many families, purchasing school supplies strains the family budget. Through Smart Supplies, JLC replaces the traditional candy and trinkets with notebooks, backpacks, and other supplies as game prizes for students at the Smart Start back-to-school celebrations.

Smart Supplies also assists teachers at our Smart Matters schools in Richland School District One by providing requested bigger ticket items, such as paper and toner for printers in classrooms.

Spring into Reading

The gift of literacy is perhaps the most important gift you can give a child, and Spring into Reading is designed to help promote and encourage literacy in the tradition of Smart Matters. By linking with spring book fairs in several Smart Matters schools, we organize an opportunity for all children in the school to sign up for and receive their own Richland County Public Library card, along with information about their closest library and its programs. Working with schools to identify children who need extra focus in language arts, our volunteers help these children shop for a book and make a wish list of other books they want to receive. In the summer, these children receive books and family activities in the mail.