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Diversity Awareness

Diversity 101

Diversity 101 team members’ mission is to take the complex subject of diversity management and simplify the concept to a high school level. Partnering with the Bridge Builder Foundation (a youth leadership organization), Diversity 101 will host 50 young leaders at the Youth Leadership Summit (YLS) on August 27th, 2011. During YLS, Diversity 101 will introduce these young leaders to diversity management through fun student exercises, interactive case studies and open group discussion.

DLIbrarians

DLIbrarians recognizes that access to books is one of the most successful ways to improve the reading achievement of children. However, according to the U.S. Department of Education, up to 61% of low‐income families do not have any books for their kids at home. Little Free Libraries (LFL) play an essential role by providing 24/7 access to books (and encouraging a love of reading!) in areas where books are scarce.

DLI Twenty Sixers

The goal of the DLI Twenty Sixers project is to provide children with autism an opportunity to interact with typically-developing children and to provide typically-developing students with an opportunity to learn about autism, to develop a relationship with an affected child, to be exposed to a potential career path and to create a sustainable project model for the Autism Academy.

Dream Builders

The Dream Builders Group launched an awareness campaign for the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial that encourages Greenvillians to donate to the national memorial foundation, volunteer for the dedication weekend events, and generate greater awareness for the memorial by telling others about it. Using a variety of media outlets from social media to digital billboards to hard copy leaflets, the team wanted to achieve greater awareness and to ensure that Greenville has a significant opportunity to share in this important, national initiative.

Dream Connectors

The primary goal of the Dream Connectors is to provide seventh grade students, primarily those from less advantaged backgrounds, with the opportunity to learn about diverse career opportunities available in the Upstate. The project consists of pilot programs that will connect students at the Hughes Academy of Science and Technology and Lakeview Middle School with Upstate businesses, namely BMW, Greenville Health System and Michelin.

Dream Connectors Too

Dream Connectors Too aims to strengthen and expand the successful DLI capstone project begun by the Dream Connectors DLI group. The original pilot project aimed to link seventh graders in two middle schools to three of the largest businesses in Greenville County, which are significant generators of local jobs: The Greenville Health System; BMW; and Michelin North America.  Each business did an interactive presentation at each middle school, hosted a tour of their facilities, and then did a follow-up visit to the schools.

The Dream Weavers

Dream Weavers focuses on one of the least visible aspects of poverty: children who are not homeless, but within their homes, do not have a bed to sleep in. The Dream Weavers team was inspired by similar activities undertaken by agencies in only a handful of other cities. Those cities have recognized that their populations have a certain percentage of children in poverty who live in homes but without beds.

Embrace SC

Embrace SC has created a website that can be utilized as a tool for companies who are targeting and recruiting diverse candidates to the Midlands. Mindful of the negative perception that many people still have of South Carolina, the group’s website provides links to organizations, activities and relevant resources in the Midlands that cater to diverse individuals in the following categories:

Explorers

The Explorers aim to spread an understanding of and appreciation for diversity to students. The Waccamaw River is essentially the only separation between the attendance regions for St. James and Conway High Schools, but students from these two high schools generally have very different day-to-day experiences, mainly because of disparate backgrounds. The Explorers aim to bridge this gap, partnering with such organizations as Coastal Carolina Community College, in understanding between students from these two schools by bringing them together through education.

Flashes of Hope - Midlands

Flashes of Hope South Carolina Midlands will provide a myriad of volunteers to come together from many diverse backgrounds for the purpose of capturing professional and lovingly memorable photographic images of pediatric patients with life-threatening diseases, disorders, and injuries like cancer, sickle cell, and trauma. This program will be offered to many who may not have the ability to pay for such services, but certainly will not remain exclusive to them.