As you may be aware, the United States Department of Education (DOE) announced the award of five year Promise Neighborhood Implementation Grants to awardees around the Country - unfortunately, for the City, and more specifically the residents and students residing in the Point Breeze and Grays Ferry neighborhoods, Universal’s Implementation application was not awarded. 

Many of us remember the days when people in a community looked out for one another.  If a child on the block misbehaved – hurt another child or crossed the street without looking – someone’s mom would provide a scolding, no matter who the child’s real mom was. 

The Promise

While the precise nature and extent of the “PROMISE” Universal and the District is making to Point- Breeze and Grays Ferry communities is evolving, our commitment to Promise Neighborhoods is grounded in our mission to achieve the following core goals:

• Changing the culture of academic failure amongst all key stakeholders;
• Engaging families of the community in accepting and sharing responsibilities for outcomes by engaging in and committing their ideas, energy and time to changing that negative culture;
• Reversing and combating the concept of “moving out” to the commitment of “this is my home and my community and it’s worth fighting for”;