The mission of Thrive in 5 is succinct - to get every one of Boston's 39,000 children under the age of 5 ready to succeed in school and life and to prevent the readiness gap currently evident at school entry. According to the Thrive in 5 website, www.thrivein5boston.org, in 2009, only 54% of Boston's children entered kindergarten ready. The aim of Thrive in 5 is to have 100% of Boston's children ready for school by kindergarten entry in 2018.

Katy Gobeil, Director of the SE/LR Children Thrive in 5 said, "Over the past several months we succeeded in establishing 15 partnerships with SE/LR businesses to support them in being family-friendly places of business." Phil Garofalo, owner of Douglas Square PT & Rehab of North South Physical Therapy, Inc. said, "Children are the biggest focus of our giving back to the community. We are happy to partner with Thrive in 5 because we believe kids need direction. We want to be a part of encouraging kids to have determination, focus and goals in life. It all happens when they are young."

Since its inception, SE/LR Children Thrive in 5 has been successful in hiring six parent ambassadors in targeted housing developments around the community. These ambassadors are making direct contact with families of children 0-5, hearing what kind of support they need, and sharing resources with the families. Quanda Burrell is a young mother of two and has been a parent ambassador for SE/LR Children Thrive in 5 for two years. She describes one of her greatest challenges in this role in relation to what many consider to be one of the community's greatest assets-diversity. "We are having success in reaching hundreds of families with young kids and helping to make sure their children are ready to enter school, but often we encounter language barriers and need to find interpreters. One of our parent ambassadors speaks Cambodian and another speaks Spanish, and that helps tremendously, but we need to hire more workers who speak other languages, like Mandarin."

USES' President & CEO, Kevin Hepner said, "Taking on challenges of this magnitude with a silo mentality is ineffective and unacceptable. It is not the best use of our time, energy and funding. Only by working together will we get our precious young children ready for success in school and life."

This August, USES was fortunate to have volunteers from Northeastern University's nuSERVES initiative again this year. The nuSERVES program offers fifty incoming first-year Northeastern students an opportunity to explore their new community through community service. Students learn about issues affecting urban environments through the integration of educational workshops, trainings, and reflection. They apply this knowledge to various service projects in the community.

The program aims to not only challenge volunteers' perceptions and assumptions, it encourages them to advocate for solutions, take action in their new community, and make long lasting friendships prior to the start of classes in the fall.

The thirteen volunteers that came to USES on August 31, 2012 split into three groups and began by assisting our Maintenance Department by cleaning the grounds at both the 566 Columbus Avenue and 48 Rutland Street buildings. Some duties included much needed raking, garden tending, and trash removal. One group even broke down and removed a decrepit picnic table!

 
The groups over at 48 Rutland Street, after completing the maintenance work, were looking for more to do. Early Childhood Education staff then asked if the volunteers could engage with the children in the program and were thrilled to see the volunteers work so well with the preschoolers in a variety of play.