Promise Partners
Our Promise Partners are community organizations that provide services to all of their community members to support them. Each community organization provides different services. Please use the drop down menu below to learn more about the different community Promise Partners and the services they provide. Contact them directly for more information.
Grand Rapids Public Schools (GRPS)
We believe that all children can achieve their academic potential through effort, high expectations, and quality teaching. The Grand Rapids Southeast Promise.
Neighborhoods Project builds on many of the existing programs, projects, and initiatives that are improving outcomes for students and families across the district.
Kent Intermediate School District
The Kent Intermediate School District (Kent ISD) is a local educational service agency devoted to achievement for all students. As a partner of the Grand Rapids Southeast Promise Neighborhood Project, Kent ISD’s Health Education Consultant will contribute to the project by providing drug and opioid prevention services in the Southeast neighborhood.
Western Michigan University Center for School Renewal-High Impact Leadership School Renewal Project
The High Impact Leadership (HIL) Model for School Renewal and strategic levers for high-integrity and high-fidelity implementation were provided by WMU researchers Jianping Shen and Patricia Reeves, and they are showing real results for schools! Our HIL Model for School Renewal is a systems approach to complex change in schools. It is based on four powerful leadership principles that help re-energize, refocus, reframe, re-imagine, and recreate the work of achieving literacy for optimizing learning opportunities and outcomes for every student.
Baxter Community Center
Baxter Community Center has a long (55 year) history of serving our neighbors. Baxter has a Holistic Health Center, Child Development Center, Out of School Time programs, Marketplace (free food and clothing pantry), Greenhouse, Community Canning and Gardening classes, and much more. As a partner of the Grand Rapids Southeast Promise Neighborhood Project, Baxter Community Center provides healthy food to children and educates families about nutrition. In addition, we provide free three-year-old preschool for 12 students living in the Promise Neighborhood, ensuring that they are meeting their developmental milestones and getting any support they might need. Baxter has a Great Start to Readiness Program classroom that our three year-old-students can transition to when they turn four, which is free and prepares students for Kindergarten.
YMCA
The YMCA of Greater Grand Rapids is an inclusive organization of people committed to strengthening communities through youth development, healthy living, and social responsibility. As a partner with the Grand Rapids Southeast Neighborhood Project, the YMCA along with Baxter Community Center and United Methodist Community House provides quality early childhood education to 3-year-old children.
United Methodist Community House
United Methodist Community House (UMCH) is all about “community.” Since 1902, we have been meeting the needs of and offering opportunities to children, youth, adults, seniors, and families in our neighborhood, to help them increase their opportunities to succeed. Located in the heart of Grand Rapids, we are committed to serving a diverse population and are continually adapting our programming to best service those who need us most—our community. As a partner of the Grand Rapids Southeast Promise Neighborhood Project, we are committed to giving families access to excellent child development services that help prepare children to thrive in school and throughout their lives.
Family Futures
As a partner of the Grand Rapids Southeast Promise Neighborhood project, Family Futures provides regular developmental and social-emotional screening to children, ages 0-5, coupled with parent education and community resource navigation. Family Futures ensures children enter school ready to learn and succeed. Since successful outcomes for children and youth are increased in trauma-informed communities, Family Futures also serves as a trauma/resilience guide for children, youth, families, and organizations in the community.
Grand Rapids Community College (GRCC)
GRCC will provide support for students interested in entering the child development program at GRCC. As a partner of the Grand Rapids Southeast Promise Neighborhood, GRCC's Workforce Training will build continuing education offerings for child development providers to help them continue and expand their education. GRCC will provide opportunities for parents of children in Promise neighborhoods to upskill and reskill to get the career they desire.
LINC Up of Grand Rapids
Our mission is to advance a racial equity agenda in Grand Rapids by Expanding Affordable Housing and Increasing Community Power. Ultimately our work is to change policies that limit advancement opportunities in under-resourced communities and neighborhoods. LINC UP exists to expand opportunities in communities by developing and utilizing social infrastructure to engage residents and families, connecting them to existing programs, institutions and opportunities while simultaneously working to expand opportunities around housing, education, employment, and entrepreneurship. As a partner of the Grand Rapids Southeast Promise Neighborhood Project, LINC Up, engages and improves resident leadership for healthy and educated children and youth.
Grand Valley State University-Dorothy A. Johnson Center
The Johnson Center for Philanthropy provides services to help nonprofit organizations strengthen their teams, tools, and thinking for better impact. The Johnson Center will contribute to this work by developing and managing a longitudinal, integrated database for improving student outcomes and the community in southeast Grand Rapids, tracking the designated indicators and contributing our thinking to ongoing improvement of the project and the data used to inform it.
Grand Rapids Southeast Side Resource Guide
