Wisconsin’s bald eagle population has recovered, a new moon has been discovered on Uranus, and the 1975 sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald remains a topic of discussion.
These headlines and many more were brought to you by the Simpson Street Free Press, a newspaper staffed by Madison-area students. And thanks to a recent six-figure grant from a local service organization, they’ll be able to continue their literary exploration.
A piece in the Saturday, March 7 issue of the Wisconsin State Journal covered the award. According to the story:
The Kiwanis Club of Downtown Madison has been assessing the needs of local youth since 1917, making it one of the oldest Kiwanis clubs in the state. The club has been supportive of Simpson Street’s mission for years now, and this $200,000 gift is an extension of that.
“I think Kiwanis recognized the effectiveness of our system, and they were enthralled with the idea of young people coming up through our pipeline,” Simpson Street Executive Director Jim Kramer said. “It’s really a youth leadership and professional development pipeline. Our educational outcomes are sterling. We get results.”
Simpson Street promotes literacy and learning by having students write articles that are published on various platforms.
The kids range in age from elementary to high school, the elder students helping mentor younger writers through rounds of research, editing and rewriting. It’s in the revising process where Simpson Street leaders say the real learning happens.
The students are also paid for their work, and they carry business cards.
“If you, me or any adults walked down the street after school and said, ‘Hey kids, we’re going to spend an hour and a half on our writing, grammar and spelling,’ we probably wouldn’t get a lot of kids jumping up and down with excitement,” Kramer said. “But if you tell them they’ve got a real job, and they have business cards, you know, it’s amazing what kids will do.”
Community gifts like the Kiwanis Club’s are key to sustaining Simpson Street, which doesn’t do much fundraising or marketing.
“We do very well because we bring in a lot of small donations from just people around southern Wisconsin who believe in what we do,” Kramer said.
The project was started by South Side parents who wanted to give their children other academic options outside of school, Kramer said.
“And for 34 years, that’s what we’ve done,” he said. “Kiwanis recognized that, and they specifically wanted to support our youth leadership to professional development pipeline.”
Kiwanis committees focus on building up the STEM fields, literary skills, meal services and more. Members listed the groups they’d like to fund, and Simpson Street quickly rose to the top. The club has been a longtime supporter of Simpson Street, with previous endowments bolstering the paper’s annual budget. “They just have demonstrated the ability to really improve the outcomes for students that are in their program,” Kiwanis President Michael Doran said. “We’re hoping that this catches on and there’s more of this approach to learning, reading and writing skills in the area.”
The Kiwanis Club has changed its donation strategy recently: Rather than annual donations, the club is looking to contribute larger gifts that can be used over time. Simpson Street is the first local organization to be awarded.
The $200,000 donation will be administered by the Madison Community Foundation, earmarked for more paid positions at Simpson Street, more student writers and mentors, and an increased overall footprint.
“We’re hoping that if we give a large chunk of funds like that, that they’ll be able to bootstrap that and get some other matching donors in the community,” Doran said.
