As part of our Education pillar, we developed community partnerships which focus on the success of future generations. While the pandemic has provided many families more time together, the busy lives of parents balancing work without childcare has undoubtedly impacted stress levels in many households. A December 2020 study by the National Institute of Health concluded:
“Parent stress increased substantially during COVID-19 and has not returned to pre-COVID-19 levels… Furthermore, given the persistent and repeated demands of this pandemic, many families are likely experiencing chronic stress, which is concerning given the physiological and emotional consequences of chronically elevated stress.”
DTLR partnered with Jalen Rose Leadership Academy, an open-enrollment, tuition-free public charter school in northwest Detroit. JRLA provides a leadership-focused education to more than 400 ninth through twelfth grade students.
DTLR stepped in to help alleviate the weight on parents of purchasing uniforms by providing them to the 130-incoming freshman. Each scholar was gifted with two uniforms, free of charge, and their third will also be free, on behalf of DTLR (usually students receive one free top and must pay for all others).
In conjunction with this newfound partnership, DTLR is also launching a scholarship, where one scholar from the Classes of 2025, 2026 and 2027 will be awarded with funds to attend a post-secondary institution. This partnership of uniforms and scholar dollars is a 3-year agreement, in which DTLR hopes to extend the partnership and create outreach volunteerism opportunities for the scholars to participate in for years to come.