Back to School: Building Dreams and Bridging Gaps in Central Indiana

Anna Sutter – Director of Program Management

The beginning of the school year is such an exciting time for me as Director of Program Management because I get to be back in schools a little more frequently. I joined the Fight for Life Foundation team after 5 years as a middle school counselor, so being able to directly witness how Building Dreams impacts students, teachers, school counselors, deans, and parents is important to me. We all want tools that help make our day-to-day lives easier, but it’s the relationship-driven values of this organization that create such a valuable partnership.

Over the last couple of months, I’ve been attending various Back-to-School events at our sites to assist schools in getting their parents and guardians onboarded onto our Building Dreams software. Our technology has a user group for parents to communicate directly with their child’s teacher, monitor their child’s behavior (the positive stuff too), receive school announcements, and receive updates of their’ child’s day. Pretty cool, right?

I was overjoyed to see familiar faces and connect with new families. I send out weekly Announcements with local resources and curate content based directly off of interactions with families or data from needs assessments. There are so many phenomenal organizations around Central Indiana that want to help, but it’s about making the connection and making those resources accessible.

Educators make this work fun too. One of the Deans greeted me with a hug last week and proclaimed, “We’re going to earn those field trips, Anna!” In reference to our monthly field trip incentives that we offer through our Be A Blessing program to our Building Dreams users. These all-inclusive experiences offer students the opportunity to be immersed in the Indianapolis community during their school day, while providing schools an incentive that doesn’t cost them additional time to plan and money to fund. Planning field trips is no easy task, and it’s an easy way Fight for Life Foundation can help make school leaders’ lives a little bit easier.