San Mateo County Library Receives $175,000 Grant

San Mateo County Library has begun implementing a model intergenerational learning program for families in the community with a three-year, $175,000 grant from Toyota and the National Center for Families Learning (NCFL). The local library joins four other organizations nationwide receiving Toyota Family Learning program grants in the second year of the program.

“Toyota Family Learning in San Mateo County Library is a tremendous opportunity to serve families and support their strengths in becoming leaders in their communities and advocates for their children’s success,” said Anne-Marie Despain, Director of Library Services, San Mateo County Library. “It is a chance for disconnected families in underserved communities to form connections and support systems, to feel that they have a voice, that they are not alone, and that they matter.”

Independent evaluations show Toyota Family Learning has yielded impressive results.

“Following year one, we are finding that participating families are interacting more often with their child’s school and using technology with their children for educational purposes,” said Emily Kirkpatrick, vice president of NCFL. “Fathers and siblings are more involved in family learning. We’re seeing gains in parents’ organizational and leadership skills and involvement in their community.”

Families across the country, often first-generation immigrants, are already benefiting from the first year of Toyota Family Learning. Today’s announcement brings the total NCFL and Toyota grant amount to $1.75 million for programs in 10 schools, libraries and community-based organizations across the country (see below for list of grantees).

“Toyota Family Learning helps bridge the gap between classroom and lifelong learning,” said Mike Goss, vice president of external affairs for Toyota Motor Engineering and Manufacturing North America, Inc. “We build on the success of intergenerational literacy programs that enable parents and children to learn alongside each other, by taking that learning outside the classroom in ways that are engaging and relevant to real life situations.”

Area families participating in the Toyota Family Learning program will:

• Attend Parent Time and Parent and Child Together (PACT) Time®: Participating parents engage in guided learning with a focus on leadership. During PACT time, families learn together while engaging in activities including mentoring and service learning, using technology together, reading together, and taking family trips.

• Join in service learning activities: Reflecting Toyota Family Learning’s guiding philosophy, which is rooted in community service, families participate in at least three service projects.

• Engage in family-to-family mentoring: Building community networks is integral to experiencing life success following graduation from the Toyota Family Learning program, and the mentoring element teaches families how to share information with each other in an effort to foster self-sufficiency.

The community grants are just one facet of Toyota Family Learning – a six-year, nationwide initiative that also offers an online learning community called Family Time Machine, which helps parents and kids make better use of every moment in the day, and engages families in mobile learning adventures. Toyota Family Learning resources and information are available at www.toyotafamilylearning.org.

About the National Center for Families Learning

The National Center for Families Learning (NCFL) is a national nonprofit organization dedicated to helping adults and children learn together. NCFL creates and deploys innovative programs and strategies that support learning, literacy and family engagement in education. NCFL collaborates with educators, advocates and policy-makers to help families construct hotspots for learning wherever they go. For more information on NCFL’s 25-year track record, visit www.familieslearning.org.

Toyota Family Learning is the most recent initiative made possible by the 24-year partnership between NCFL and Toyota. Together, NCFL and Toyota have helped more than one million families around the country make significant progress in school, in their homes and in their communities.

About Toyota

Toyota (NYSE:TM), the world’s top automaker and creator of the Prius, is committed to building vehicles for the way people live through its Toyota, Lexus and Scion brands. Over the past 50 years, Toyota has built more than 25 million cars and trucks in North America, where it operates 14 manufacturing plants and directly employs more than 40,000 people. The company’s 1,800 North American dealerships sold more than 2.5 million cars and trucks in 2013 – and about 80 percent of all Toyota vehicles sold over the past 20 years are still on the road today. For more information about Toyota, visit www.toyotanewsroom.com.

--Information and image provided by Toyota