Calhoun County children who have been suspended or expelled from school have the potential to move forward emotionally and academically at the Suspension Center of Starr Commonwealth Battle Creek. The center promotes academics, positive behavioral change, and personal enrichment for students -- and is helping kids successfully integrate back into school when they return. 

Michigan Future, Inc.’s High School Accelerator plans to open 35 open enrollment, high-performing high schools in Detroit and nearby suburbs by 2017. It hopes for a trickle up affect: 85 percent of students graduate high school, 85 percent of high school graduates attend college, and 85 percent of college students earn a college degree. 

Each year, the University of Michigan Museum of Natural History brings a unique collection of children’s workshops to libraries in southeast Michigan with its Family Reading and Science Program. Content changes from year to year; this year, in fun, kid-friendly settings, children learned to prepare, enjoy and understand foods from around the globe; to appreciate the likenesses and differences between races; and to recognize the inspirations that drive the universal language of music.

Kids' Food Basket is devoted to alleviating childhood hunger in greater Grand Rapids, and now in Muskegon. Its Sack Suppers program, where take-home meals are distributed in classrooms to ensure that each child has a nutritious evening meal, reaches low-income students in 35 schools. 

From its hub in southwest Detroit, the Girls' Tutoring Program at Mercy Education Project (MEP) helps girls learn basic academic skills they may have missed in school through one on one tutoring. Once those fundamentals are mastered, student performance improves – and many tutoring program grads go on to college. 

Ready for School is a Holland, Zealand and Hamilton community initiative insuring that all children come to kindergarten prepared to succeed.

Henry Ford Academy: School for Creative Studies, a middle and high school, wants to equip young people with skills to become critical thinkers and innovators and find success in college and careers. Students use Design Thinking, a structured way of innovating that involves identifying roles, techniques, environments, and tools to address problems using human-centered design, learning by doing, and collaboration. When integrated with core curriculum, Design Thinking makes creativity and innovation an integral part of learning at this Detroit public school academy. 

Youth in the Grandville Avenue neighborhood of Grand Rapids are digging the Press Club, a program of the Creative Youth Center and Grandville Avenue Arts & Humanities. Here, young reporters go on field trips, conduct interviews, and even get published. The program encourages youth to find, develop, and share their voices and improve writing skills as they report on their experiences at events and cultural activities in west Michigan.