Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye has donated to the Los Angeles based organization School on Wheels, which will support more than 1,000 students experiencing homelessness from kindergarten through twelfth grade.
The artist has donated several million dollars to charitable organizations in recent years, including humanitarian efforts in Gaza, Ethiopia, Lebanon, Covid relief and more.
According to the announcement, the mission of School on Wheels is to enhance educational opportunities for children who are the most disadvantaged in the city. His donation will support the below programs as well as software:
LEARNING LOSS – TUTORING CAN HAVE A TRANSFORMATIVE IMPACT:
Will support the School on Wheels’ Literacy Program and provide students ages 5 – 8 with in-person tutoring and the tools they need to learn to read and write.
COVID-19 devastated our unhoused students more than any other group. The pandemic erased two decades of progress in math and reading, and researchers have documented that the poverty rate is the best predictor of the extent of that learning loss.
BUS PROGRAM (BELIEVE-UNDERSTAND-SUCCEED):
Will help students living in homeless situations graduate high school in 2024. only 68% of unhoused students graduate High School.
TECHNOLOGY:
Will provide the technology to learn – laptops and Chromebooks, internet access and software for hundreds students experiencing homelessness. School closures and moving instruction online exposed the huge digital divide between rich and poor and caused crushing learning loss in children experiencing homelessness. software. We use Renaissance Star Assessments, MyOn, and Freckle. The software helps us assess students and provide them with adaptive learning and curriculum based on their educational gaps.
To learn more about School on Wheels, visit www.SchoolonWheels.org
