after school until 5:30pm, Monday through Friday. Children receive a daily snack and participate in reading, STEAM (science, technology, engineering, and math), music, language and service-learning. Programs are tailored to student needs and provide necessary skill building opportunities for students to gain 21st century workforce, academic and social emotional skills. Other activities include cooking, global arts, and physical fitness. There are 22 Metro Kids locations at elementary schools in Des Moines Public Schools. The Department of Human Service licensed daycare centers currently serve over 1,000 children and families. Metro Kids services are offered after school until 5:30pm Monday through Friday. Metro Kids offers childcare on non-school attending days, holidays and breaks. Children in Metro Kids receive a daily snack and participate in creative, recreational and interactive opportunities in a safe, nurturing, challenging, fun environment. Each Ambassador will organize a major event for Lights On Afterschool, the Afterschool Alliance’s annual rally for afterschool. Committed to diversity and inclusion. We support our communities by providing services to all people, and by treating each member as an individual to meet their specific financial needs. We help members work towards financial stability with Individual Development Accounts (IDAs), financial education programs and through our work with Habitat for Humanity. Some 24.7 million U.S. children not in an afterschool program would be enrolled, if a program were available to them, according to a survey of nearly 1,500 parents commissioned by the Afterschool Alliance and conducted by Edge Research in May and June of 2022. That is the highest number ever recorded. Unmet demand for afterschool programs is significantly higher among Latino and Black children (at 60% and 54% respectively) than among children overall (49%). Cost is the top barrier to enroll, cited by 57% of parents as a reason for not enrolling their child. Ninety percent of parents rate the quality of the program their child attends as excellent (51%) or very good (39%). A large and powerful body of evidence demonstrates improvements in grades, school attendance, behavior and more among children who participate in afterschool programs. Researchers have also found that students in afterschool programs are more engaged in school and excited about learning and develop critical work and life skills such as problem solving, teamwork, and communications. Learn more about our commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at veridiancu.org/inclusion
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