Recipients

 

Live like Coco

Live Like Coco is an all volunteer non-profit organization giving out free books for ownership to kids in the Santa Cruz County area. In 2023 we gave out nearly 25,000 books through events at 18 public schools, at community outreach and little free libraries and through partnerships with local organizations, such as County Park Friends and Diversify Your Stack. 

Mission Statement: Helping children in Santa Cruz County grow up healthy and with opportunities to pursue their dreams. 

Impact: We are an all-volunteer organization, so generous donations from the George Archer Foundation help us buy a lot of books for local kids! We strive to buy the titles that kids really treasure, like Dog Man, Captain Underpants and I Survived! Graphic novels. But each year the cost of these books go up. Your support means that we can keep buying the books kids love and even expanding our book giveaway

 
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LEAD Elementary School

Lead Elementary School, as part of the San Mateo Foster City School District, is a public PreK-5 Title I School with over 500 children in attendance. More than 58% of our children are English Language Learners coming from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds.

As part of the Academic Center, certificated Lead teachers will provide targeted instruction in after school small group settings (4-1) using best practices in early literacy. Multiple data assessments will guide teachers as they design and deliver targeted instruction using oral language, rich, culturally diverse leveled readers, literacy games, podcasts, and Units of Study from Lucy Calkins at Columbia Teachers’ College. Our goal is to support our English Learners with additional English Language Development support that is necessary to help our students academically achieve in all subject areas, in addition to supporting their social-emotional learning.

We are honored to be a recipient of The George Archer Foundation.

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Charles Armstrong School

The mission at Charles Armstrong School is to unlock the unique potential students

with dyslexia and related learning differences, changing the trajectory of their lives.

As a school that works magic for children with these challenges, we are acutely aware

of the differences that can be made in their lives by our teachers and staff. Ongoing

specialized teacher training is key to ensuring Armstrong students continued success

and further improve the advancement of literacy. It is imperative that Armstrong is

able to give our teachers the best training and tools possible. The George Archer

Memorial Foundation for Literacy has been an important partner in helping us fund

training and professional development for our teachers.

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Compass High School

Compass High School is dedicated to working with children with learning differences; providing a challenging yet supportive academic program that prepares talented teens for college while addressing underlying learning challenges in academic achievement, executive function, and social development. Our faculty are dedicated to unlocking the potential of every student. We partner with parents and families to make sure we capture the duality of our students’ learning experience both at school and at home. We know every student learns differently and that teaching should be as focused on strengths as it is on challenges.

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Sterne School

Many students attend Sterne for our recognized Reading program developed by Steve Tattum, our in-house Reading Specialist. Steve Tattum developed the Tattum Reading program, which focuses on decoding and fluency using systematic phonics, auditory processing, and literature-based instruction, to create a hands-on program that is highly effective for struggling readers. At Sterne we see our students’ decoding skills typically increase several grade levels over the course of one school year when taught with the F.A.S.T. (TATTUM) Reading System. To deliver our Reading Program virtually, Steve Tattum trained three Sterne Lower School teachers: Malia Lytle, Learning and Resource Specialist; Kate Adams, Reading and Math Instructor; and a new Lower School teacher, Jessica Dodson. He also trained our new Head of Lower School, Matt Poynter, in Tattum Reading. The three teachers who received this training work directly with approximately 45 Lower School students (grades 4-8) whose reading test scores place them far below grade level. These students have diagnoses ranging from dyslexia to ADHD and auditory processing disorders and in many cases suffer a combination of learning differences that create barriers to literacy.

The George Archer Foundation grant supports this program.

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Kenwood Elementary School

The Kenwood School utilizes The Archer foundation grant to support our Reading Specialist Program, which involves direct instruction to children in our primary grades (1-3) who are struggling with emergent reading skills. Our Reading Specialist is a credentialed teacher who works directly with individual students and small groups of students to assist them in reading activities that focus on decoding, phonemic awareness and other emerging reading skills necessary for young readers to be literate and successful.

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San Mateo Public Library

The San Mateo Public Library has established itself as a critical hub for learning, enrichment, and community engagement. In normal times, thousands of patrons come to the library every year to take advantage of literacy instruction and tutoring, technology and meeting room resources, and cultural programs -- all provided free of charge. The pandemic has closed library doors and required us to provide these services in different ways. Thankfully, we have funders like the Archer Foundation who are helping us maintain outreach to vulnerable populations when they most need it. Archer funding has been used to provide additional technology support for Project Read tutors and their students so that instruction is available virtually. The Library has also provided free books to families with school aged children and set up WiFi hotspots in community centers so students can complete online schoolwork. Without the support of funders like the Archer Foundation, the Library would not be able to provide the level of service we've maintained during the pandemic. We cannot thank all the folks at Archer enough!

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Past BENEFICIARIES

 

2018

2017