April's Supporter of the Month is DTE Energy!

April 4, 2013 | 826 Blog Post

It seems appropriate in more than one way to compare DTE Energy to a lightbulb (beyond the obvious connection, of course). Lightbulbs are often underappreciated, because you only notice them when they quit working. But a  lightbulb that goes merrily along, just doing its thing, providing light, is quite easy to overlook.
We’ll quit with this metaphor before it gets TOO tortured, but let us just say: what a lightbulb DTE Energy has BEEN for us!
Since 2011, the DTE Energy Foundation has been supporting 826michigan in a very real way. First it was funding for our tutoring program at Ypsilanti Middle School — funding which helped that program grow from the tiny fledgling it was in 2009-2010 to the beautiful adult bird it is today, with its own staff member, a host of partnerships with other community organizations, and of course 2012’s major publication What to Call the Place I Call Home.
As if that weren’t enough, the DTE Energy Foundation was also behind one of the biggest, most exciting, most wonderful, most longed-for steps in 826michigan’s history: the Detroit expansion! Thanks to a $100,000 grant, we were able to begin our work in Detroit.
We announced this huge step in October. Now, it’s April, and we have:
One (1) inimitable new staff member, the lovely and talented Program Manager and Volunteer Coordinator Courtney Wise!
Three (3) residencies in Detroit classrooms! (At Detroit Public Schools Amelia Earhart and Bunche, and charter University Preparatory Academy!)
Five (5) more schools on the waiting list for In-school Residencies!
Twenty-five (25) volunteers trained and ready to go!
And the most important, the best, the number we are absolutely the most excited about:
Forty-five (45) Detroit students served with one-on-one attention and literacy support each week.
It’s early days yet, but we are proud beyond measure of this progress and we can’t wait to push those numbers further and further up. None of this would have been possible without that initial support from the DTE Energy Foundation, and we can’t express our thanks often enough.
So thank you, DTE Energy Foundation. Let’s shine on!

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