The Need for LOVE
Although there are many mentoring programs, not many target female students who come from low income households. LOVE is not only designed to teach young ladies the importance of academic excellence and personal achievement, but the importance of health wellness. We implement a variety of sport trainings and fitness classes into our workshops. We believe in introducing our girls to new ideas in order to add curiosity and enrich their lives.
The public school that we are partnering with is Arundel Elementary/Middle School located in Baltimore’s Cherry Hill neighborhood. The needs of Arundel Middle School are immense. This school has a total of 351 students enrolled with 97% of them being African American. The school’s behavioral history includes 99 suspensions is the 2011-2012 school year the Baltimore city average is 48. According to Baltimore city Public School system the majority of students have below average MSA testing scores. The most notable is the 8th graders who only scored 13.8%, 29.6% and 50% proficient and advanced on the Science, Math and Reading MSA respectively.
Even in our early stages, Ladies On the Verge of Excellence has experienced remarkable success serving the community’s at risk population. Our organization has organized over a dozen community service projects in Maryland and DC. We also assisted with numerous community service projects for organizations such as Linda's Legacy, The Foundry, The Maryland Food Bank and Big Sib Lil Sib.