On the Road Collaborative (OTRC) is a non-profit youth empowerment organization located in Harrisonburg Virginia. They empower underserved middle and high school youth with the opportunity, skills, and confidence they need to excel in school, be on track for college & career and fulfill their promise. Their mission is achieved through academic and enrichment learning experiences and caring adult relationships during after school and summer hours.

This organization seeks to narrow the learning gap experienced nationally for children unable to access extracurricular activities and after school programs. From the On the Road Collaborative website: “By the age of 12, children from low-income families have experienced a 6,000-hour learning gap compared to their peers due mostly to out-of-school factors, such as access to pre-school and after-school and summer learning programs.”

Our founder Chiedo has served as a teacher and a board member since the organization was founded. More recently Generate Impact’s COO, Mike Forster is continuing to teach where Chiedo left off. Mike and Chiedo helped teach students during after school hours basic HTML and CSS skills so they could practice building their own websites. Today technical skills are becoming more commonplace in education and in the learning curriculum. Cursive is on it’s way out in place of typography and computer science. This article lists 6 reasons why young students should be educated on coding https://www.iste.org/explore/In-the-classroom/6-reasons-for-coding-in-K-5-classrooms

Mike meets with the students in his group once a week, developing skills and providing a safe environment for furthering education and building confidence, that could inspire their future. We are passionate about the opportunities OTRC enables its participants and will continue to support the organization to support its mission.

To learn more about On The Road Collaborative, or to volunteer or donate, visit https://www.ontheroadcollaborative.com/