The Children’s Defense Fund Freedom School is a daily summer school that offers intensive reading and values education for 120 students in grades 1-10. The school also boosts the capacity of local college-aged community leaders by hiring them as Servant Leader Interns to work in the school and providing them with a week-long training in Tennessee.  After a lengthy application process, Metanoia received approval to host our first Freedom School from the National Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) in the summer of 2006.  

The school meets daily for seven hours a day over the course of six weeks in Metanoia’s space at Chicora School of Communications. CDF provides an integrated reading curriculum that incorporates a high-energy summer camp atmosphere with constant reading activities for students. Six weeks of lesson plans are developed to help staff and children reflect on the theme "I Can Make a Difference in My: Self, Family, Community, Country, and World."  

Studies have shown that students who do not read during the summer months lose as much as one-third of their previous grade level's learning. The Freedom School is an attempt to mitigate that trend in our own community where adult leaders often have to work multiple jobs and have few opportunities to read to their children. You can be a part of the Freedom School by making individual contributions to Metanoia. Most individual contributions that come to Metanoia go to fund this program.

Interested in volunteering???  

Learn about VOLUNTEERING with Metanoia Freedom School.

Interested in working for Metanoia Freedom School for the summer???

   Learn about WORKING with Metanoia Freedom School.