{"id":8352,"date":"2025-11-18T09:21:29","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T17:21:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/juniorcenter.org\/staging-juniorce\/?p=8352"},"modified":"2025-11-18T10:56:52","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T18:56:52","slug":"with-your-help-71-of-families-will-receive-financial-assistance-from-junior-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juniorcenter.org\/staging-juniorce\/?p=8352","title":{"rendered":"Why Creative Learning Works: A Parent\u2019s Testimony from Junior Center"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\u201cMy son connects with the classes and teaching artists at Junior Center in a way that he doesn\u2019t connect with any other activity or teacher in his life.\u201d \u2013 Leah, Dean\u2019s mom.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Maybe you can relate to Leah as a mom, or to her son Dean, and their not-so-positive experiences with traditional learning. Maybe you feel like your kid\u2019s special spark never gets lit up by school or other after-school programs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is why the Junior Center of Art and Science plays such an important and magical role in our students\u2019 lives. We strive to ignite a unique spark in every one of our students. We need your donation support<\/a> to do it.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inclusivity is fundamental to our mission and a promise we keep by offering all our classes and camps at low or no cost. And every teaching artist at Junior Center is 100% committed to meeting each student where they are. Our fundamental mission is to make the exploration of the arts and science accessible for<\/em> <\/em>al<\/em>l<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leah\u2019s son Dean has been coming to the Junior Center for after-school classes and summer camps for the past three years, since he was six years old. His positive experiences at Junior Center have meant the world to Dean, <\/strong>and to his whole family. Leah explained why:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Dean struggles with connection and focus. As his mom, I was getting nonstop negative feedback from his school about how distracted and disengaged he was.

He became a different kid at the Junior Center. His first experience was carpentry, and at six years old it was thrilling for him to build things with his own two hands using a hand saw. 

At the end of camp, the teaching artist came to tell me, \u201cDean was so engaged the whole time, it was so fun to work with him!\u201d Wow. That was a profound moment for us. Dean\u2019s gifts were finally<\/em> being inspired and appreciated by a teacher. It was so awesome; I teared up.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Children of all ages and abilities are welcome at Junior Center, regardless of their learning style or family\u2019s capacity to pay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Will you make a gift today<\/a> to keep Junior Center camps and classes accessible to all<\/em> East Bay families?<\/strong>

The majority \u2013 71% \u2013 of our students\u2019 families receive some kind of financial assistance from the Junior Center.<\/strong> Donation support<\/a> from community members like you make that generosity and accessibility possible, and we can\u2019t do it without you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cMy son connects with the classes and teaching artists at Junior Center in a way that he doesn\u2019t connect with any other activity or teacher in his life.\u201d \u2013 Leah, Dean\u2019s mom. Maybe you can relate to Leah as a mom, or to her son Dean, and their not-so-positive experiences with traditional learning. Maybe you…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":8361,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"templates\/template-full-width.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[54,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fundraising","category-community-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/juniorcenter.org\/staging-juniorce\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Deans-Story-Banner-1902-x-800-px.png",1902,800,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/juniorcenter.org\/staging-juniorce\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Deans-Story-Banner-1902-x-800-px-150x150.png",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/juniorcenter.org\/staging-juniorce\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Deans-Story-Banner-1902-x-800-px-300x126.png",300,126,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/juniorcenter.org\/staging-juniorce\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Deans-Story-Banner-1902-x-800-px-768x323.png",768,323,true],"large":["https:\/\/juniorcenter.org\/staging-juniorce\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Deans-Story-Banner-1902-x-800-px-1024x431.png",800,337,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/juniorcenter.org\/staging-juniorce\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Deans-Story-Banner-1902-x-800-px-1536x646.png",1536,646,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/juniorcenter.org\/staging-juniorce\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Deans-Story-Banner-1902-x-800-px.png",1902,800,false],"post-thumbnail":["https:\/\/juniorcenter.org\/staging-juniorce\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Deans-Story-Banner-1902-x-800-px-1200x505.png",1200,505,true],"category-thumb":["https:\/\/juniorcenter.org\/staging-juniorce\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Deans-Story-Banner-1902-x-800-px-300x126.png",300,126,true],"twentytwenty-fullscreen":["https:\/\/juniorcenter.org\/staging-juniorce\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Deans-Story-Banner-1902-x-800-px.png",1902,800,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Rachel Holmstrom","author_link":"https:\/\/juniorcenter.org\/staging-juniorce\/?author=9"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"\u201cMy son connects with the classes and teaching artists at Junior Center in a way that he doesn\u2019t connect with any other activity or teacher in his life.\u201d \u2013 Leah, Dean\u2019s mom. Maybe you can relate to Leah as a mom, or to her son Dean, and their not-so-positive experiences with traditional learning. Maybe you…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorcenter.org\/staging-juniorce\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorcenter.org\/staging-juniorce\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorcenter.org\/staging-juniorce\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorcenter.org\/staging-juniorce\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorcenter.org\/staging-juniorce\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/juniorcenter.org\/staging-juniorce\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorcenter.org\/staging-juniorce\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorcenter.org\/staging-juniorce\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorcenter.org\/staging-juniorce\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorcenter.org\/staging-juniorce\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}