Save the Children Helps South Carolina Kids Become Successful in School

Save the Children has worked in South Carolina since 2003, offering critical early childhood education programs for parents and children from prenatal development through third grade. Currently, Save the Children partners with 17 schools in five South Carolina counties, to serve more than 5,000 children and their families. Programs are offered in Barnwell, Clarendon, Lee, Orangeburg and Union Counties.

In a state where 61 percent of 3- and 4-year-olds living in poverty do not attend early childhood education programs and 71 percent of fourth graders do not meet grade-level reading standards, Save the Children’s programs are improving children's development, boosting their early literacy and math skills, and preparing them to be successful in school and life.

Save the Children’s programs help children and families living in South Carolina’s most isolated, rural communities, which lack access to early learning programs and struggle with limited services, poverty and unemployment. These programs include:

Early Steps to School Success, a home visiting program for children prenatal through age five that empowers parents to be their child’s first and most important teacher. It helps children build a foundation of language and early literacy and math skills, as well as social and emotional development.

Kinder Boost, a school readiness program that helps children and families make a smooth transition to kindergarten.

School-age education programs during and after school that help kindergarten through third graders improve their reading and math skills, striving for proficiency at the end of third grade.

Summer Boost Camp, which helps children from low-income families maintain the academic gains they made the prior school year, when class is not in session.

Save the Children’s partnerships with rural communities also grow greater economic opportunities for adults, helping train more than 100 local early childhood educators to enter a workforce that’s working wonders for children.

Save the Children opened its new South Carolina office in Orangeburg this past March, located at 903 Chestnut Street. This marks Save the Children’s second field office in the United States, signaling its significant investment in the Palmetto state.

If you’re interested in learning more, please contact Save the Children’s South Carolina State Director Sonia Elise Gass at (803) 347-4538 or sgass@savechildren.org.