Louisiana Public Broadcasting Works with ExxonMobil to Promote STEM education through Ready To Learn
October 23, 2012
Louisiana Public Broadcasting (Baton Rouge, La) has partnered with ExxonMobil on their Ready To Learn efforts for the past five years. Each year the partnership grows deeper, providing important early childhood literacy services in the Baton Rogue community. Partnerships are a critical component of any funding relationship, and success can open the door to even more opportunity. LPB leveraged their strong relationship with ExxonMobil in reaching out to other corporate foundations and local organizations to support their education programming and initiatives. The impact has been enormous, and has helped position LPB as a critical educational resource in the community.
The LPB and ExxonMobil working relationship began in 2007 when Jeanne Smith, LPB’s underwriting director, along with Ready To Learn Coordinator Lenora Brown, met with ExxonMobil government relations executives to see where their common interests lay. ExxonMobil already had a vested interest in STEM learning and previously sponsored a weather segment through the local news. Additionally, the corporation had an active group of mentors and volunteers eager to bring their knowledge of STEM into an early-childhood classroom setting. LPB was able to address these needs, and through their collaboration, ExxonMobil turned to LPB as both an avenue for reaching the Head Start community and as a venue for trusted STEM learning and literacy content. Five years into the partnership, LPB works closely with ExxonMobil to train volunteers on LPB STEM learning and literacy content using The Cat in the Hat Knows A Lot About That materials. The volunteers complete science experiments with, and mentor, the young children at the local Head Starts. In the first two years of the program, following each lesson, the children received a book related to that day’s activities. In the first two years over 1,000 books were distributed. In subsequent years, LPB worked with ExxonMobil to set up, or expand, the lending libraries at each Head Start. Since the beginning of the ExxonMobil/LPB partnership over 5,000 books have helped to enrich the learning experiences of these at-risk children in North Baton Rouge.
LPB used the success of their partnership as a springboard for other such collaborations. They have reached out to local businesses and corporations in the community for both grant funding and underwriting support. The Raising Cane Chicken Fingers chain provided early support for the Reading Buddies program, and is currently underwriting SuperWHY. Entergy Corporation previously supported Between the Lions and now underwrites Sid the Science Kid. LPB also received a $40,000 grant from the JP Morgan Chase Foundation to support the SuperWHY camps. Jeanne Smith knew the potential impact a successful partnership with ExxonMobil could make from the very start, “I thought to myself, if we can hit this out of the park – take this small initial investment and do great things – that can mean big things for the future.” The boost in confidence and motivation resulting from the ExxonMobil partnership, made building relationships with other businesses and corporations less intimidating.
Developing such a successful program was not an easy task. It took hard work and determination on the part of LPB. For stations eager to develop similar relationships with local businesses and corporations in their community, Jeanne encourages you to listen closely to what your potential partner wishes to get out of the collaboration. Following the sit down meeting with ExxonMobil, Jeanne, Lenora and Ready To Learn trainer Gail Nettles, developed a proposal that addressed the specific needs ExxonMobil expressed. ExxonMobil desired a working relationship with Baton Rouge Head Starts and effective STEM learning and literacy content materials for pre-school children. Had LPB not kept their proposal on point, ExxonMobil would not have seized the opportunity to reach out to 5,000 plus children, their parents, caregivers, teachers and administrators since the partnership began in 2007.
More recently, LPB has begun building a relationship with the Baton Rouge Rotary Club around early childhood literacy. The recent Ready To Learn Conference in Washington D.C. gave LPB an opportunity to expose a member of Baton Rouge Rotary’s Preschool Literacy Committee to the public broadcasting community and share information on the educational impact of LPB. Using ExxonMobil as an example of what can be accomplished in pre-school education when corporations support public television; LPB is cultivating a close relationship with the Rotary Club and its many influential members. It will take time, but an equally strong Ready To Learn partnership can develop from this effort.
