Building Curriculum

At Firewall Centers, our students are not just assisted with their homework, but we create curriculum to help them better understand the world around them.

Our Elementary School Mentors spend hours making lessons, PowerPoints, and games for their students. Some of the topics we discuss include taking care of our environment and how they can apply math and reading to real world, day-to-day experiences. This helps our students realize that the world is more than just school and grades, and allows them to connect the knowledge they gain with the real world.

All the while, we are able to teach all of our centers from our unique T.H.I.N.K. and Life Skills Curriculum. These lessons include Drug and Alcohol Prevention along with aspects that assist our kids with social and emotional health. Our students even become excited just seeing our Life Skills Director, Greg, log in to the Zoom call. The relationships we build with our students is the most important part of our program. It allows us to walk through each part of their life with them.

Serve-a-Thon 2021 was a SUCCESS!

On Saturday, April 24th, over 40 Firewall staff, AmeriCorps members, and high school students gathered at the Davie mobile home park where Firewall Centers’ Headquarters is located. Blue shirts could be seen all around the community completing different service projects like delivering groceries, painting a family’s mobile home, cleaning shoes, and painting the Orange Park community center.

This all started with a packing day in partnership with Harvest Drive of South Florida. With their support, we were able to pack 144 bags of groceries, which totaled to 3000 pounds of food all to be distributed to families in the mobile home community.

For Serve-A-Thon, we partnered with In Jacob’s Shoes to get new/refurbished, name-brand shoes. We deep-cleaned over 100 pairs of these shoes so that we could send them back to the In Jacob’s Shoes distribution center to be delivered to needy youth all across Broward County.

Inside the Orange Park Community Center, we had members begin renovating our students’ learning space in preparation for the 2021-22 school year. We expect the full renovation including the addition of new computers, furniture, flooring, etc. to be completed by fall 2021 so that our students have safe and beautiful place to study and learn.

Our favorite and most rewarding project was in the hands of our Home Painting Team! Firewall was able to accomplish a full-service paint job for one of our Flamingo Elementary students and his family. They even got to pick their own color! They were so happy with the finished product and were so grateful that Firewall made such an impact in their day-to-day lives.

At the end of it all, Vertical Church supplied the team with lunch from Chil-Fil-A as a thank you for continually changing lives all around Broward County. It was a well-deserved gift as you can see from the smiles on our staff and AmeriCorps members’ faces.

This all couldn’t have been accomplished without the support of our Serve-a-Thon sponsors: Guy Brickman from State Farm and Lime in Plantation.

Taking Survey

This month we decided to take an inventory from our parents and students on how they’ve felt about Firewall during this period of COVID restrictions. HQ Staff called parents weekly and got their feedback, while mentors logged onto Zoom to ask the students what they thought about Firewall. It is always so satisfying to see our students and their parents continue to be appreciative for how our program impacts their life. Watch our favorite clip from our students in elementary down below!

https://www.instagram.com/p/CMzr6ZulQZn/

Mentor Appreciation

March 5th is Employee Appreciation Day, but at Firewall we wanted to highlight our staff ALL MONTH! This all started by scheduling a monthly luncheon with all our staff. This allowed us to create an environment free of stress from work and just enjoy each other’s company.

As we shared each of our experiences at Firewall we wanted to appreciate all our mentor staff, that really helps Firewall help impact our students. Each Team highlighted 1-2 Mentors for special recognition. They were chosen by how they lived out the T.H.I.N.K. Principles (Take Charge, Have a Plan, Involve the Right People, Never Quit, Keep Giving Back), personally and professionally. All the names were compiled and their stories were sent out to everyone, so they could all appreciate different mentors at different centers. Read below, just one of the many mentors we got to recognize!

Bair Middle

We believe Arlene Sanchez deserves this award because she is a direct reflection of “N” in THINK. She never quits!

On multiple occasions, Arlene has shown the desire to actively commit to our students and anything necessary to help them pass their grade level. She has shown initiative by putting extra time to be available to our students on Fridays for 1-on-1 sessions. She is dedicated to our mission at Firewall and the success of our students all the way from Orlando. Arlene deserves this recognition and more!

We aim to grow our mentors to be the best. It’s our goal not just to grow our students into servant leaders, but to give our mentors the training and support to be the best they can be.

We’re Accredited!

Firewall Centers, the after-school mentoring and tutoring program, located in Davie,FL has earned National Accreditation through Green Apple Accreditation of Children’s Services.

Green Apple Accreditation of Children’s Services is a national, independent accrediting agency for Child Care Centers, After School Programs, Private Schools, and Behavioral Health Programs.

Firewall Centers was founded in July 2003 after the tragic death of a 13-year-old girl who overdosed on drugs while left unsupervised during after-school hours. Founders Andy and Janeth Fernandez began meeting weekly in the very mobile home park where the young girl lived and died, providing activities and positive object lessons for its youth. Recognizing the need for a daily positive presence, an after-school mentoring and tutoring center was established. Since 2012 when Firewall Centers began its first after-school program within public schools, the organization has expanded from serving 40 students to now more than 500 every day. Even COVID could not stop us! We continue to receive more recommended students from school administration.

In Jacob’s Shoes Outreach

This February, we are sharing some EXTRA love for our community. We had the amazing opportunity to not just work with another non-profit in Broward County, but also gift each of our students a pair of shoes! ‘In Jacob’s Shoes’ gathered over 100 pairs of shoes, both new and refurbished. They sorted them by size and name, and packed them up for us. One of the great things about ‘In Jacob’s Shoes’ is that they are also a program funded by The Children’s Services Council of Broward County.

We then took the bags of shoes and socks back to our Orange Park Center. HQ staff, alongside our mentors, separated the bags by center. Over 120 of our students all around Broward County will receive shoes and other gifts (i.e. chocolates, candy hearts, etc.) for our Valentine’s Day delivery. Make sure to check out our YouTube channel on February 14th to see our complete recap video of the deliveries and our work with ‘In Jacob’s Shoes’.

If you would like to visit ‘In Jacob’s Shoes’ website for more info on their organization, go to injacobsshoes.org

Firewall Family Generosity

Thank you for ALL of your help Firewall Family! Thanks to many generous donors, we were able to reach our end-of-year goals. We can’t thank you enough for believing in our mission to transform students into servant leaders. What we receive from YOU allows us to consistently support our students, through daily tutoring and mentoring. We are starting off 2021 strong because of your generosity!

We also wanted to take this opportunity to thank all of our partners like the Children’s Services Council of Broward County, Volunteer Florida, United Way of Broward County and other individuals that have allowed us to spread holiday cheer with presents for all of our students.

We have also been able to produce a new video series, Firewall Explores, which has made our students excited to attend virtual sessions and stay interested in learning. Click below to see our Firewall Explores highlights from 2020!

Spreading Holiday Cheer

Program Directors, Lead Mentors, Success Coaches, and Mentors packed their cars this holiday season, ready to spread cheer to everyone in our Firewall Family. They delivered thoughtful care packages, filled with goodies like snacks and toys, to over 100 mentors, families, and students alike!

Mentors also received a holiday surprise for them to enjoy. Students received different combinations of toys, socks, and books. This was all thanks to the generous grants and donations from The Children’s Service Council of Broward. They continue to support our mission to transform students into servant leaders. Click down below to see firsthand what happened at Firewall’s Winter Workshop!

Firewall Goes Under the Sea

Firewall Explores has become a big hit with all of our students. Every other Monday they log on ready to find out where Woodny and Diego have been. We have gone through some different topics like Civil Engineering and now Marine Life and their habitat.

Through a partnership with South Florida Science Center and Aquarium, we were able to use their facility and interview one their Aquarium Director, Rebecca. She helped the students learn about ways to keep their oceans and the fish in them safe. Also, Woodny and Diego were able to teach our students how the Nitrogen Cycle works. Videos like these help Firewall break down educational topics into bite sized interactive videos.

Click down below to see our latest video and check out the South Florida Science Center and Aquarium in West Palm Beach!

I <3 Firewall Centers

This month we went to our staff and asked them to finish one sentence: “I love Firewall Centers because…” Asking this question brought out a lot of amazing responses. Staff members that have been with us for years got to revisit the reason they first joined Firewall. On the other hand, new mentors and staff are mentioning that even while we are still virtual, they love connecting with their students. Alex, one of our Success Coaches for Bair Middle School, who has worked with us for 6 years, said. “I love Firewall because I get to build relationships with my students.” While, Shawn, our new Elementary Program Director, says, “I love Firewall because we have college students pouring into our students who need love and support, and they’re getting it.”

The closer we get to the end of 2020, the more we want to look back at the good times of our year. If you have a response to why you love Firewall, share it on social media and tag @firewallcenters! We’d love to see how many members we have in our Firewall Family. Of course, if you want to give more than a response and support us financially, you can go to firewallcenters.org/donate