Cranston Lights On Afterschool Event Set for October 20
Cranston’s 21st Century Community Learning Center (21st CCLC) will join the
Afterschool Alliance
Afterschool, a nationwide series of events celebrating and supporting afterschool
programs, on October 20. Lights On Afterschool is the only nationwide rally for
afterschool programs. More than 8,000 events are expected to take place this year
across the country and at U.S. military bases worldwide.
Cranston’s 21st CCLC’s Lights On Afterschool event will be at Gladstone Street
Elementary School in Cranston from 3:00pm – 6:00pm for Program Participants and
their Parents and 5:00pm – 6:00pm for the general public. At the event students will
host their 2nd Annual Cranston Cancer Survivors Walk where students raise funds to
help those who have survived the tough disease. The student-run event will have a
DJ, bounce house, light refreshments, and feature other Rhode Island Afterschool
Programs and Camps along with partnerships that help programs in the state provide
limitless opportunities to students and their families.
Special guests are expected to include Mayor Fung, school superintendent Jeannine
Nota-Masse, local celebrity Gary Balletto, the director of 21st Century Programs at
Rhode Island Department of Education Jan Mermin, and State Representatives.
All community members and parents of students are invited to attend.
For further information, please contact Ayana Crichton at
acrichton@cpsed.net
Cranston’s 21st CCLC serves 500 youth in Cranston, giving them a safe place to go
after the school day ends. Ayana Crichton, Program Director of Expanded Learning for
the 21st CCLC federally funded programs in Cranston, is an Afterschool
Ambassador
selected by the Afterschool Alliance to promote the benefits of afterschool programs
and speak out about the need to make more programs available to the children and
families that need them.
The 2014 «America After 3PM
survey of more than 30,000 families, commissioned by the Afterschool Alliance, found
that participation in afterschool programs has increased to 10.2 million students
nationwide, up from 6.5 million in 2004. But the unmet demand for afterschool
programs has increased as well. Today, for every child in an afterschool program,
there are two more whose parents say they would participate, if a program were
available. One in five students in the United States today is unsupervised after the
school day ends.