Good Neighbor Center GTMD 2020

Good Neighbor Center is a tutoring and mentoring program serving young people in grades K-College in the Twin Cities Metro area. GNC provides services free of charge, and focuses on providing educational enrichment opportunities to historically underserved communities. GNC supports strong communities by providing the educational resources that the young people need as 

In March, GNC made the decision to temporarily halt programming due to all of the unknown factors in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. During this time, we worked to connect with our young people and help them access the resources they needed. GNC partnered with Connexions Tutoring to provide free, online tutoring and homework help to any member of our community who needed it. In addition to helping to provide online homework help, GNC also provided the supplies and materials that our young people needed to complete their schoolwork, as well as books and activities to do during the summer.

At the end of August, GNC resumed in-person programming, with major adjustments to the way our program operates and the way we provide services. Workspaces are now more spread out to allow for physical distancing, masks must be worn when inside, and cleaning and sanitizing happens multiple times each day. GNC recognizes the risk of transmission, while also honoring and respecting the needs of our community. Overwhelmingly, our families communicated to us the need for in-person services. Most of the families we work with have English as a learned language, which has complicated the distanced learning they are tasked with. As such, many young people have fallen far behind in school and have not been able to learn important concepts to stay at grade-level.

GNC has had to step up and provide more resources for our young people and families during this difficult time. We have pivoted to providing other resources to our young people, such as technology, supplies, or study space to help adapt to their changing needs. All of this amounts to increased spending on resources needed for programming. We are, once again, reaching out to our community for support to help us continue to do the work that we do.  Please consider making a donation to our program.