Dear After-School All-Stars Parents,

We hope that you and your family are safe and well following our run-in with Hurricane Ian last week.

When I last updated you, it was to share the news that we would not be able to start our academic enrichment programming at Memorial Middle School or the Village of Excellence Charter School at the beginning of the school year in August as we had planned.

I want to give you an update on the progress of our work with the Florida Department of Education (FLDOE), who administers the 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLC) funding for After-School All-Stars programs. We spoke with the state director of the 21st CCLC program. She complimented our work and the work of the Hillsborough County School District. However, FLDOE had double the applications that they could fund, and they just are not able to fund every program at this time.

We are now focusing our attention on identifying alternative funding for next school year. There will soon be federal funds coming to Florida specifically for education enrichment programs. We are planning our proposal this fall and will be traveling to Tallahassee in January to meet with our State Representatives for additional support.

I really appreciate your patience and understanding as we go through this process, and we consider our program “paused” until we can start again. As always, the students are our top priority, and I will let you know immediately when we receive updated news.

We are so grateful that you are part of the After-School All-Stars community, and especially honored that we’ve been able to serve students in Tampa Bay since 2015.

I welcome you to reach out to me if you have any questions.

All my best,

Joe Mangione

Executive Director

After-School All-Stars Tampa Bay

[email protected]