Earlier this year, Harvard Developments and Harvard Property Management (Regina) teamed up with the United Way on a flagship education program for inner-city elementary students called “Summer Success”. The idea of the program was to help students avoid the “summer slide” – which is a term used to describe students who tend to forget the skills and knowledge they learned from the past academic year. To accomplish this, the United Way and participating inner city schools began a three week program whereby students would attend the school throughout the week and take part in various reading and craft activities.

As part of Harvard’s involvement and support of the program, employees from our downtown offices volunteered each week at the schools and assisted the kids in that day’s themed activity. At the end of the three week program, each student was presented with their very own backpack courtesy of Harvard, complete with school supplies for the upcoming school.

Early feedback from the Summer Success program has been very positive with teachers reporting participating students having made large strides in their academic goals to start the school year. "The United Way partnership and support I felt this year was outstanding,” commented a teacher from a participating school. “The volunteers that came to help and were involved on family day were amazing. Thank you!!!"

For more information on the United Way and their “Summer Success” Program, please visit HTTP://WWW.UNITEDWAYREGINA.CA/