School Partnerships Giving Kids Hope & Opportunity
Local businesses, faith communities, nonprofits, and civic organizations want to help local kids. We connect them with nearby schools, then coach the partnership so community time and giving turn into lasting change.
You Want to Help. But Where Do You Start?
Community leaders already care about the kids down the street. They have plenty of desire to help local schools. What they do not have is a way in. Worse, they find:
- It’s hard to get started
- Determining the best way to help is harder
- Coordinating resources and volunteers without a plan is impossible
All too often the wanting to help stays, but nothing changes. Meanwhile teachers carry more than any one staff can hold, and kids who need one more caring adult go without.
That’s why Caring for Kids is here to help.
You Bring the Heart. We Bring the Plan.
We have spent more than a decade building school partnerships across Kansas City, and we do not just hand you a brochure and wish you luck. A coach on our staff sits down with you and a real principal, helps you build a plan around goals that school already has, and stays with you while the work gets going.
That is how a one-time donation becomes a partnership that lasts for years instead of an afternoon. And it costs your organization nothing.
Learn how to get started at one of our free lunch & learn workshops.
What Principals and Partners Say
Ask a principal what changes when the community shows up, and you hear the same answer: they stop feeling alone. Ask a partner, and you hear that they finally know their work is making a difference. Here is what that sounds like in their own words.
Wondering If You Can Help a Local School?
If your organization cares about kids, there is a place for you here. Businesses, faith communities, nonprofits, and civic groups all partner with schools the same way, through the same process, with the same coaching behind them. You do not need experience in education. You just need to be willing to show up.
Businesses
Give your team a meaningful way to serve, earn real goodwill in the community, and open doors to mentoring, internships, and career pathways for local students.
Faith Communities
Serve the neighborhood right outside your doors. Faith communities of every size find that a school partnership gives their people a clear, steady way to love their city.
Nonprofit Organizations
Reach the families you already serve in the place they gather every day, and collaborate with other partners at the same school instead of working on your own.
Civic Organizations
Police, fire, government offices, and service clubs bring trusted faces into schools and show students what it looks like when a community takes care of its own.
Want to start helping today? Download our free guide on 38 ways to serve schools.
How to Become a School Partner
You do not need a big budget, a background in education, or a plan of your own. Here is exactly what happens between your first hour with us and your first day in a school.
01
Join a Lunch & Learn
Spend one hour with us online, and learn everything you need to partner with a school.
02
Make an Action Plan
Build a simple plan matched to real needs at a real school.
03
Make a Difference
Put the plan to work with your coach beside you, and watch it grow into a partnership that lasts.
How You Can Support Local Schools
Every school sets different goals, so partners help in different ways. Here is where most begin.
Mentoring and Reading Buddies
Sit down with a student who needs one more adult in their corner. An hour a week can change how a kid sees school, and how they see themselves. Read more >
Volunteering in Schools
Tutor a student, help in a classroom, translate for a family, staff an event, or lend a hand wherever the school is short-handed. Read more >
Donations and Sponsorships
Fund supplies, meals, clothing, or student rewards. Sponsor our gala and put your name behind kids in your own city. Read more >
Collaboration and Networking
Work alongside the other partners at your school, share what is working, and meet leaders across Kansas City who care about the same things you do. Read more >
Want to start helping today? Download our free guide on 38 ways to serve schools.
Are You a School Leader?
You set the goals. We bring the partners. Principals in our network tell us the biggest change is not the supplies or the extra hands, it is finally not carrying the whole thing alone. If your school needs more community support, we would like to meet you.
About Caring for Kids
We are a Kansas City nonprofit that engages the community to serve collaboratively around neighborhood schools, so every child has hope and the opportunity to reach their highest potential. Since 2013, we have connected businesses, faith communities, nonprofits, and civic groups with local schools, then coached those partnerships until they can stand on their own.
We help school-community partnerships coordinate:
- Activated volunteers and real resources for schools
- Goals set with the principal, with outcomes you can measure
- Sustainable collaboration built on real relationships
- On-staff coaches who guide every partnership from day one
Join a Lunch & Learn
We host regular lunch and learns about how you can partner with a school. We cover Our proven 4-step process for community partnerships, what a partnership looks like day to day, and how to start your project.
We finish with time for your questions, whether you are brand new to this or you have served a school for years and want to do it better.
Join our next Lunch & Learn to see how you can serve your local schools.