#SharingCheer with Studiobanks

As people take time to celebrate the holidays and reflect on 2013, Studiobanks, a digital agency located in Charlotte, NC, is giving back and having fun while doing so and they need your help. The only thing you have to do is grab your camera and post a picture to Instagram or Twitter with the tag #SharingCheer. (Obviously, we’d all like to see you sharing your holiday revelry!)

For each cheery picture posted Studiobanks will donate a dollar to A Child’s Place, an organization in Charlotte that supports children in our area dealing with homelessness.

A Child’s Place (ACP) works to erase the impact of homelessness on children and their education. ACP began in 1989 when a group of women were walking through the cemetery in downtown Charlotte and noticed a group of kids playing. When asked why the kids were not in school the children explained that they were not allowed to enroll in school without a permanent address. The group of women began offering school for this group of 27 children in a one room schoolhouse provided by First Presbyterian Church with a teacher from CMS. In 1989, the McKinney-Vento Act was passed protecting the educational rights of homeless children ensuring they are provided the necessities they need to regularly attend school. Since that first class of 27 ACP client children we have grown to help 2,656 homeless children during the 2012-13 school year.

Homeless children are living in unstable living conditions that include shelters, motels, doubled-up with others and cars. Because of the instability they experience, these children are:

• Hungry twice as often as other children;
• Sick four times more often;
• Two to three grade levels behind and twice as likely to repeat a grade; and
• Experience emotional and behavioral problems three times more than their housed peers
• The national graduation rate for homeless children is below 25%.

Sources: National Center on Family Homelessness

ACP works to remove these barriers for client children to attain their education and make school the most stable part of their lives. We provide educational and emotional support services as well as medical referrals to keep our client children healthy and in the classroom.

Most of our client families are the working poor. For them, homelessness is not a way of life; it’s a time in their lives. By minimizing the impact of this difficult time on the children and their academic growth, ACP contributes to their likelihood of breaking the cycle of poverty.

Stability and education are key solutions to solve the homeless problem here in Charlotte. The relationship between education and income is one of the best-documented in economics: those with more education make more money. For every year a child progresses through school, the likelihood of being poor and homeless as an adult decreases.

After posting your pictures, visit their site, SharingCheer.com to see your pictures, as well as the images contributed by others.

If you’re #SharingCheer, please share a link here. We’d love to see them and share your cheer!

Now, let’s get started #SharingCheer!

A Child’s Place is 100% privately funded. They receive no federal, state or local tax dollars. They do not charge their clients fees. There is no endowment or business on the side to generate revenue. During the 2012-13 fiscal year, A Child’s Place received donations from the following sources: Foundations, 29%; Individuals, 28%; United Way designations, 11%; Businesses, 14%; Faith and civic organizations, 18%.