Beacon House gets grant to bring tech to after school programs

Beacon House, an after school program which serves 300 children in the Edgewood Commons community to provide academic support to their students and close the academic achievement gap, won a grant from the National Cable and Television Association to integrate tech into its programming.

Chosen as one of only three organizations across the city to receive this grant, Beacon House is now entering a brainstorming period to decide how it should best use the funding that it has received. To that end, they will hold a Visioning Summit on October 20 to gather feedback from students, parents and community members about their hopes for the technology program, according to a spokesperson. After that the organization will work with the D.C.-based Collaborative Communications Group to decide how to implement the feedback they received into a program which they will begin to implement at the beginning of the 2018-2019 school year.

Tech and career–based support are particularly important to the children in the program because Ward 5, where many of them reside, faces significant generational poverty.

Over the 26 years that it has been in operation, Beacon House has developed a notable academic and athletic program. While the organization’s football team draws the most attention, the program also encourages students to be physically active, and reinforces the idea that academic achievements are important as well. Hopefully the organization will be able to implement a similarly effective program with technology.