Mission & Core Values

CULTIVATING HOPE

The Bester community in Hagerstown, Maryland, can be a challenging place for families to raise children safely, with a high poverty rate, health challenges and a high rate of children removed from their homes due to abuse or neglect.

Those challenges haven’t gone unnoticed, and in 2013 San Mar took the lead to reach out to key partners to form alliances to build a Community of Hope, a place where people share a vision of safety and success for every child who lives there. It’s a place where public and private organizations, nonprofits, philanthropies, government, businesses and communities collaborate closely to help achieve that vision. As a result, children are safer, families are stronger and communities are more supportive places.

As an initiative of San Mar Family and Community Services, Bester Community of Hope embodies the mission of “Cultivating Hope and Well-Being in Children, Families and Communities” within the South End of Hagerstown, MD.

Community of Hope is an initiative of San Mar, focused on prevention with a place-based strategy for positive outcomes for the children and families located in the Bester Elementary School neighborhood in Hagerstown, Maryland.

“We believe that helping a community thrive begins with a local focused investment in children and their families, and there is no better place for consistent connections than school.”

South End 21: Afterschool Programs

A 21st Century Community Learning Center program funded by a federal grant from the U.S. Department of Education and administered by the Maryland State Department of Education.

BCOH provides the South End 21 after-school programming at no cost to students or families through MSDE: 21st Century Community Learning Centers grant. Programming is provided at Bester Elementary School and E. Russell Hicks Middle School; Monday through Friday with bus transportation. Opportunities include academic and home work support as well as fun enrichment groups like graphic design, sports, dance, and robotics.

Pipeline of community support

Pursuing the community school strategy, with successful integration of community partners into the existing school programs will also allow the pathway for other community members and organizations to find meaningful ways to contribute to needs identified by school personnel and Bester families.

Virtual Meetings

A Social-Emotional curriculum integration

Through a partnership with The Center for the Collaborative Classroom (CCC), Bester Community of Hope has provided Bester Elementary School teachers toolkits to add resources to daily class meetings focused on building kindness, emotional intelligence, communication and social skills. Implementation in other school systems who have utilized this social and emotional learning model have seen dramatic positive outcomes in not only behavioral and disciplinary statistics, but overall academic success. CCC continues to be involved as a consultant helping to continue to refine the work and move the effort forward.