Spring Forward
Spring Forward provides no cost after-school and summer enrichment literacy programs in the Rock Island-Milan and East Moline School Districts. Spring Forward helps children achieve long-term stability and self-sufficiency by focusing on literacy and reading skills of children from kindergarten through sixth grade. Since its inception, Spring Forward has supported thousands of students, helping them to increase literacy, academic, and social skills through fun and engaging out-of-school programming.
The program originated in 1999 as a mission project of Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church in Rock Island. Generous church members supported the volunteer tutoring program that provided a safe after-school environment for children coupled with a little extra homework help and initially served 40 students from Audubon Elementary School. In 2007, the growing need for after-school programming motivated the church to create a separate nonprofit organization to support additional Rock Island schools and expand its literacy focus. A second after-school campus opened in 2009 at First Presbyterian Church in Milan to serve students from Ridgewood and Thomas Jefferson Elementary Schools. Since that year, summer enrichment camps augmented after-school programs, the number of which has steadily increased each year to a current total of 11 schools: 9 in Rock Island-Milan and 2 in East Moline.
In June 2015, administrative offices moved from Good Shephard Presbyterian Church to the Rock Island-Milan School District Administration Center. This move helped foster closer working relationships with key district staff, increased the network of community partners, and improved access to resources to expand and improve programs. This partnership and many others have helped Spring Forward become the regional leader in out-of-school learning. Experimentation and adaptation have allowed Spring Forward to determine what works best for Rock Island’s most vulnerable students, leading the National Summer Learning Institute to look to us as a best practices model.
Wastyn & Associates began working with Spring Forward in 2014 when we helped facilitate the strategic plan that eventually led to their move to the Rock Island-Milan Administrative Center. Facilitating another strategic planning session in 2018 focused on the board’s desire to expand. That planning session also included working with the staff and board to develop a comprehensive and strategic fundraising plan to help them find and secure the resources to support that growth within the confines of their current and anticipated staffing models.
“Linda has vast knowledge of nonprofit operations coupled with real world experience. She provided Spring Forward with a solid framework to help us reach our program, fundraising and other key objectives. She did this in a manner that minimized guess work, building on extensive community feedback and board strategic work sessions. The end result is a well thought through strategic plan.”