RBC has been providing grants to community-based
organizations across Canada that deliver after-
school programs since 1999.

This Funding from the RBC Foundation is part of
RBC's ongoing commitment to children and
education.

Perdita Felicien, Olympic Athlete:
Who likes math? Nintendo? Okay.
 

Perdita Felicien:
Yeah, yeah, yeah for sure.
 

RBC invites community members such as educators,
youth workers and police officers to sit on one of
six selection panels across the country to select

first time grant recipients.

RBC After School Grant programs offer structured,

supervised activities for kids in an environment
that provides what RBC has termed the "3 Ss";
safety, social skills and self esteem.

Ronald Suzuki, Community Recreation Programmer
Strathcona Community Centre, Vancouver, BC:
We have four components; we have sports, we have

performing arts, we have the socialization and we have of
course the visual arts. We have specialists that come in
everyday and provide these children with an opportunity to

learn and to be stimulated.

I think a quote from the Royal Bank Foundation was,

"When school ends, we make sure that learning continues."
I think that in the spirit of RBC we've been doing that for
the past six years. This community is adjacent to the

downtown east side where basically crime, drugs and
prostitution is quite prevalent.

In the month of March over three hundred needles were
collected and disposed of. RBC's contribution is not just in
money. I've found in the past six years that I've been

involved in that, they themselves worry same as me about
sustainability. A lot of times a Foundation gives you money
and you spend the money and there's no follow through.

RBC has made that effort to go beyond that to make sure
that the program is sustainable. There have been many
times throughout the year where I've been given regular

reports and articles and updates about what's happening in
my field and the children I want to service, which shows
that RBC is not just only giving money but they're also

trying to stay on top of the whole issue of after-school
programs. What can I say? It's just fantastic.
 

Franz Gauthier, Program Co-ordinator
L'Hôte Maison (Maison de Jeunes) Montreal, QC:
If you were to ask me what the most serious problems

with teenagers are. I would say it's mainly dropping out
of school and that's what we focus on the most. Uninvolved
parents, lack of support and lack of resources, especially

at school, come into play. The youngsters are talented, but
disinterested and there's a lack of follow-up regarding their
scholastic results.

I would say that the extracurricular program contributes to
the children, the teenagers and the community. The young
people are very interested in fact. I was talking to a

teenager who was very interested in theatre, everything
about the stage but unfortunately he laced the resources.
When he was younger he participated in the

improvisational part of the program.

Now he's a little older and has found his calling. He wants

to act and is working very hard towards that. He's able to
do this because the program offered field trips to the
theatre and all kinds of extracurricular courses.

Shobha Adore, Executive Director
Braeburn Neighbourhood Place, Etobicoke, ON:
What happened to our children last year in September is

that there were three homicides in our neighborhood just
in one night. It was really important after all of that
happened that the after-school program was here because

kids knew that they had somewhere to come to. They
knew that it was a safe place.
 

We have a Safe Arrival program and it gave them a sense
of community as well that they could be with their peers,
they could be with their neighbors. Parents knew where

kids were after-school. We have a number of kids who've
done really well in the after-school program. It's helped
them to find their gifts. It's helped them to find different

interests.

It's opened up - Given them a wider vision of what they

could do and what they could be. Justin is one of them.
There are a number of them who have stayed in high
school, they've gone onto college because they were,

particularly through the homework part of it, they were
prepared for school the next day, they understood the
work and everything was complete.

Justin Europe, Youth Counselor
Braeburn Neighbourhood Place, Etobicoke, ON:
When I was in the program as a kid, it gave us more

things to do in the neighborhood because there's not a lot
of stuff to do in the neighborhood. They gave us basically
sometimes a lot of kids didn't have food to eat at home.

They have a little snack in the program. They have
organized games we can play that we don't usually get to
play in the neighborhood and keep them away from the

streets.

Try to give them something to do like homework; give

them organized activity instead of them trying to do crimes
on the streets. It made me want to come back as a
counselor so I could share the same goals and gifts that

the counselors before shared with me so that in the future
maybe one of the kids wants to be a counselor too. They
can pass it on and it can just keep going from there.

Shobha Adore:
The year before the RBC program started, our children
were not doing well in the grade three testing. At that point

they had scored eleven-fourteen and seventeen percent in
reading, writing and math. In this last round of testing they
came in at fifty, fifty and fifty-one.

I think the RBC After School Program has been such a
great thing to happen to this neighborhood. It's concrete
proof that there are corporate partners who take an

interest in a very tangible way. Neighborhoods matter and
children matter and that there's a willingness to be at the
table to make a better community.

RBC believes our continuing investment in after-
school programs helps kids, strengthens families
and enriches communities.

Helping children learn is one of the best
investments a company can make.
For more information visit rbc.com/afterschool.

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