NASHVILLE, Tenn. – A grant has been awarded that will help an afterschool program triple in size for middle school students in Metro Schools.
Mayor Karl Dean announced that the Wallace Foundation awarded a grant of $765,000 to the Nashville After Zone Alliance (NAZA).
It currently serves 400 students, and the grant will allow the program to serve an additional 750 students.
Nashville was among just nine cities singled out to receive grants because of its leadership and commitment to afterschool programs.
Dean and Metro Schools partnered to create NAZA in 2009 to provide free afterschool programs for students who couldn't participate in existing programs due to cost or transportation issues.
Multiple organizations run 18 programs either on-site at Metro middle schools or at community-based sites.
The grant will help launch a new zone each fall for the next three years, starting with a Northwest Zone next school year for students in the Whites Creek/Pearl-Cohn clusters and a Southeast Zone in 2013 for students in the Cane Ridge/Antioch clusters.
The first NAZA program was launched two years ago in the Northeast Zone with the Martha O'Bryan Center as its coordinating agency, serving more than 200 Maplewood and Stratford cluster students.
The South Central Zone was added last year to serve an additional 200 students from the Glencliff and Overton cluster schools.
Other cities that received grants included Baltimore, Denver, Fort Worth, Grand Rapids, Jacksonville, Louisville, Philadelphia and St. Paul.
