.fb-like span { overflow:visible !important; width:450px !important; margin-right:-200px; }   Frontline Outreach Youth and Family Center is located in the core of the West Orlando Community of Washington Shores. It is early Tuesday morning.  Little innocent faces fresh from sleep are unstrapped from their car seats and rustled by their mothers, fathers or grandparents into the lobby of Frontline Outreach; school is ready to […]" />
Community

FRONTLINE OUTREACH CENTER

FRONTLINE OUTREACH CENTER

Frontline outreach

 

Frontline Outreach Youth and Family Center is located in the core of the West Orlando Community of Washington Shores. It is early Tuesday morning.  Little innocent faces fresh from sleep are unstrapped from their car seats and rustled by their mothers, fathers or grandparents into the lobby of Frontline Outreach; school is ready to start and parents must get to work.  Friendly staff greet the children and the day begins. The children will socialize, learn, have lunch a snack, play and take a nap.  During the summer months, Frontline Outreach will offer exposure to multiple activities which includes aquatic literacy instruction, basketball, soccer, volleyball, leadership training, character development and computer training.  At the end of the day the children that came to Frontline Outreach will return home, perhaps a little better off then when they arrived that morning.

 

The Westside Orlando neighborhoods served by Frontline Outreach are defined, by the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, as very low to low income with the average household income being $21,000 a year. Families struggle to afford preschool and after school programs for their children and as a result many perform below their grade levels, receive sub-par child care and as a outcome fall further behind.  The west side communities were once filled with educators, scholars and entrepreneurs.  As citizens of Orlando, the City Beautiful, we know that a community cannot be transformed into greatness without a foundation firmly rooted in education and moral development.

 

Dr. James R. Smith an African-American Physician, along with C.R. Smith and financing from the Washington Shores Federal Savings and Loan, established Frontline Outreach in 1968 and over the past 50 years the building has been a beacon and safe haven for thousands of families.

 

Frontline Outreach over the years has struggled to keep pace with the needs of its constituency, all the while the building slowly became blighted, the grounds grew unkempt and administration was over wrought while the facilities interiors turned aged and worn. It seems a God send that the structure has now begun to rise from its’ threadbare existence. The reclamation of Frontline Outreach and a renewed commitment to excellence was introduced in 2013 by Bishop Allen T.D. Wiggins of The Hope Church. Frontline Outreach was ushered into a family of community transformation organizations, known as Hope Center West resulting in a strategic alliance between the two.

 

Through this Strategic Alliance and the new and invigorated Frontline Outreach Board the organization began its’ new trek towards excellence. One of the first acts of the new board was to search for an Executive Director that had the skills to lead and the established contacts that could grow Frontline. They found those qualities in Paulette Edwards, who was brought on in 2014 as the Executive Director. Paulette has, for many years, dedicated her career to the development and revitalization of the Orlando community.  Paulette served in a number of key leadership positions such as Assistant to the Director for Orlando Mayor Glenda Hood’s Neighborhood Services Office.  In 2005, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer appointed Paulette to the position of Division Manager for the Housing and Community Development Department.  In that position she was responsible for administering the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development Community Block Grant Programs.  During her tenure she managed grant awards to numerous non-profit organizations and thousands of low and moderate income individuals and families obtained affordable housing, education, recreation, homelessness prevention, substance abuse counseling and economic development opportunities and services.  Paulette Headshot

 

 

Since the establishment of the strategic alliance and the installation of a new board, and under the leadership of Board Chair Bishop Wiggins and Paulette Edwards, Frontline enrollment in the early childhood education programs have increased over 300% and Frontline received a school readiness score of 89.9% indicating that the Pre-Kindergarten Program ensures children are on or above grade level as they enter Kindergarten.

 

“We have wonderful partners including: Orange County Public Schools Orlando Tech College who provide Adult GED classes, Orlando City Soccer Foundation who through a grant award converted a basketball court to a Mini-Pitch Soccer Court, Orlando Volleyball Academy (OVA) who provides free Volleyball training specifically for girls, The Gift of Swimming who provide free swim lessons to all children in pre-school and pre-kindergarten and Career Source of Center Florida who now operates out of Frontline Outreach allowing for employment and career opportunities for the West Orlando communities.”

 

While establishing community partnerships and providing quality programs and services are all vital components of a community transformation, Frontline never stops focusing on their number one priority and that is early childhood education. Frontline strives to be the premier center for early childhood education in the City’s urban core.  Frontline is a 501 (C) (3) IRS qualified nonprofit charity with a mission “to serve and support urban youth and their families through programs in early childhood education, character development, athletics, health and wellness and family empowerment”.  Licensed by Department of Children and Families (DCF), provider contractor to Community Coordinated Care for Children (4C) and the Early Learning Coalition to provide the Early Head Start Program and Voluntary Pre-Kindergarten Program (VPK).

 

Frontline has a tremendous opportunity to break the cycle of poverty, crime, unemployment, high school dropout and incarceration by providing quality programs and services for urban children and their families and is looking forward to doing great things to ensure the success of their children and the transformation of the community.

 

To donate please log onto www.frontlineoutreach.org/donate.

 

For more information you can email us at info@frontlineoutreach.org

 

 

To donate please log onto www.frontlineoutreach.org/donate.

 

For more information you can email us at info@frontlineoutreach.org

 

 

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