IBM and Corporate Voices for Working Families Headline Breakfast
 
For Release:              January 23, 2007
Contact:                    Rachel Wellborn, Communications and Project Manager 
                                404-527-8831, rwellborn@afterschoolga.org 
  
            ATLANTA – Over a hundred business leaders, legislators, and executives from youth serving organizations came together today for the first Georgia Afterschool Business Breakfast entitled Afterschool’s Impact: Business Leadership and Ways to Connect the Two for a Bigger Bottom Line.
 
70% of school age children in Georgia live in households where all the parents are in the labor force, potentially leaving over 1.1 million children spending time away from their parents between the hours of 3PM-6PM and in the summers making this out-of-school time more critical than ever for employers, families, and Georgia’s children.
 
Ann Cramer, director of North America, IBM Corporate Community Relations and Donna Klein, CEO of Corporate Voices for Working Families spoke on the important role businesses play in supporting Georgia’s afterschool and summer programs. According to Cramer, “Employers across Georgia are looking for employees with high-level skills, including the ability to work in teams and approach complex problems in innovative ways. Afterschool programs allow students to explore their interests and apply their school-day learning in new ways – ways that strengthen their knowledge and skills and boost their employability.”
 
There are examples of businesses taking the afterschool learning issue seriously, such as the IBM Work/Life program which helps employees better manage their work and personal lives by creating a flexible work environment which is sensitive to an individual’s needs and responsibilities. At the same time, there is still a great need for more companies to support high-quality afterschool programs for young people through the creation of innovative initiatives. High-quality afterschool programs are crucial to the development of the future workforce as well as are supportive of the needs of the current workforce. 
 
“Afterschool and summer programs are rising to be one of Georgia’s secret weapons for getting and keeping our young people on a path to success,” says Jill Riemer, Executive Director of the Georgia Afterschool Investment Council, “This event is another important step in bringing together the public and private sector to improve corporate policies that support afterschool and summer programming throughout Georgia.”
 
Today’s breakfast was co-hosted by the Georgia Afterschool Investment Council (GAIC) and Communities in Schools of Georgia, in partnership with the United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta, YMCA of Metro Atlanta, Junior Achievement of Georgia, Inc., Corporate Voices for Working Families, with funding from America’s Promise. For more information on the Georgia Afterschool Investment Council, please visit www.afterschoolga.org.