Kids + Books = Success

Miss Ruby’s Kids is a replication of the Parent-Child Home Program, serving 40 families and 2 family daycare homes. The Parent-Child Home Program is a research-proven home visiting model that prepares young children for school success by increasing language and literacy skills, enhancing social-emotional development, and strengthening the parent-child relationship. We serve families with preschool children at risk of school failure in Georgetown County, SC. In addition to the home visitation program, Miss Ruby’s Kids now serves program graduates with a school-based mentoring program. Plans are for the mentors to follow and support our graduates until they graduate from high school.

Since 2003 when we first began serving families, we have used Microsoft Office products to optimize mission delivery. Presently we use Office 2007, purchased through Tech Soup. It would be hard to imagine how productive or effective we would be as an organization without Microsoft Office products. At any given time in our office, a Microsoft product is in use supporting the delivery of the program to our county’s most vulnerable preschool children.

Client recruitment and retention are major factors for Miss Ruby’s Kids. In our ongoing recruitment efforts we use Microsoft Word to create flyers and brochures which are distributed all over the county. We have increased the number of clients served, starting with 5 families in 2003 and increasing the number served to 40 in 2008-2009. Once enrolled, families receive special notebooks of materials produced using Microsoft Word and Microsoft Publisher. Each family receives a monthly parent newsletter produced using Microsoft Publisher. The newsletters contain information designed to assist parents in their role as their child’s first, best teacher. Microsoft Excel is used to track the results of recruitment efforts, and to log test scores, contact information, and program progress.

A strong system of communication is essential to support the mission of Miss Ruby’s Kids. Microsoft products help us do this in a variety of ways. For example, we use Word to produce minutes of meetings, agendas, and educational publications. Outlook is regularly used to “discuss” issues, schedule meetings, and transfer information such as committee minutes to stakeholders.

Because we depend on individual donations and grants for income to support our mission, marketing and fundraising are essential activities. Marketing and fundraising efforts are enhanced through the use of Microsoft Office products. Excel is used to compile mailing lists and donor lists. Solicitation letters are produced using Word and the mailing labels for those letters. Microsoft Word is used to produce the newsletter we distribute to several hundred recipients on a quarterly basis and the Annual Report we mail to donors. We design and print invitations to fundraising and “friend-raising” events using the most appropriate Microsoft product for the job. For our latest fundraiser, we used Microsoft products on a daily basis to communicate about the party, design and print invitations, keep track of responses to the invitations, print nametags for guests, print auction cards, write thank you letters for donations and to communicate with committee members and Board members about the progress toward our fundraising goal for the event. In short, the event would not have been the success it was without the use of the many Microsoft products.

The recipients of our program have benefitted greatly from our use of Microsoft products. Recently, seventeen children graduated from the two year program and are ready to join the 36 children who preceded them. They will enter school prepared to succeed. We will continue to use Microsoft products to track their progress in school and support the mentors who will visit them on a weekly basis until they graduate from high school. We look forward to discovering new ways to utilize Microsoft Office products to optimize mission delivery for Miss Ruby’s Kids.