The J Crew After-School Program at the Joshua Learning Center provides intensive and comprehensive tutoring and mentoring for over 150 1st-12th grade students every Monday-Thursday from 3:00-5:00 PM. Students work with tutors and mentors on homework assignments and school projects, participate in educational enrichment activities, learn organizational and study skills relating to behavior, violence, drugs, sexual behavior, and other circumstances involved with life lived in poverty, set academic and social goals, and eat a warm, healthy dinner.

The tutoring component of our program is designed to help students improve academic achievement, to keep students on the “graduation track” and to successfully graduate from high school and pursue post-secondary education or vocation training. Because the students we serve typically score two or more grade levels behind their current grade in Reading and Math, we utilize research-based academic intervention software: Istation Reading, Istation Pre-Reading, Lexia Learning and Dreambox Math. This software provides additional reinforcement of key concepts taught in the classroom and offers students individualized training programs to target skills often missed—a common problem among economically disadvantaged students.

In an effort to provide year-round academic programming and a safe nurturing place to be rather than the streets during the summer, the Joshua Group provides a 9-week Summer Learning Program for low-income Harrisburg K-8 students. The Summer Learning Program is academically focused to help students make positive choices. Studies show that low-income children have little access to enrichment programs and thus regress more in reading and math skills during the summer months more than their affluent peers. Our Summer Learning Program engages 150 low income at-risk K-8 students from the Allison Hill neighborhood in a broad range of academic and enrichment actives. The goals and objectives of our Summer Learning Program are to encourage at-risk K-8th grade students to participate regularly, reinforce and complement the regular school year academic curriculum, to make measurable progress in Reading and Math, provide enrichment experiences, and to reduce or eliminate our students’ summer learning losses.

We also strive to provide youth a place to express their creativity and to develop into free thinkers. Each weekday for 4 hours the students move through a range of actives in age-appropriate groups; the curriculum is designed to address identified areas of student weaknesses as well as to be relevant and engage students in a broad range of activities, including: academic lessons in core subject areas, basic Reading and Math skills remediation, enrichment activities, art, STEM sessions, performing art experiences, music classes, nature experiences, educational field trips, nutrition classes, and recreational activities in a safe nurturing environment.