Company Invites CSR Teams to Match with Students; Virtual e-Mentorship Supports Employee Engagement
Press Release – McLean, VA – June 29, 2017 – Cricket Media today launched CricketTogether, a safe, innovative, turnkey eMentoring solution that gives corporate social responsibility leaders a platform for Employee Engagement that offers caring employee volunteers a meaningful opportunity to deliver a compelling educational experience for children and teachers across the country.
Students are paired with employees of partner companies to read intriguing articles and exchange thoughts about the content, and life, building one-on-one Virtual Learning Friendships in a safe, collaborative environment that promotes education equity. The benefits for students of sustained interactions with adult role models are substantial. Mentors, especially those who come from the business community, provide the catalyst to build student literacy, critical thinking, and real world problem-solving skills, as well as increase student understanding of careers and the world beyond their classroom.
The new employee volunteer platform comes online as the latest research confirms a growing trend, that employers who encourage volunteering boost morale, workplace atmosphere and brand perception. The same study says nearly 70 percent of employees would volunteer more if they had more time. CricketTogether is designed specifically to support today’s busy employee, creating a “micro-volunteering” opportunity with only a commitment of a few hours a month that makes it possible for volunteers to participate remotely working with their schedules.
The Great Courses in Chantilly, the nation’s leading developer and marketer of premium-quality media for lifelong learning and personal enrichment, sponsored a CricketTogether pilot with its employees serving as eMentors to the students. Kevin Manzel, director of content development, said, “Our overarching goal was simple: to offer a meaningful opportunity for philanthropic engagement to our associates. We needed that opportunity to both fit into our busy schedules and especially to support our mission: to empower lifelong learning. We got 100 percent plus ROI. CricketTogether fulfills our mission and was very meaningful – this was a homerun!”
Students in the CricketTogether pilot felt empowered and motivated to push their communication skills to higher levels in order to engage with the program. One student said, “I love that I can be honest with my pen pal and tell him my dreams.” Another commented on the access to remote experts and role models, remarking, “I like that you get to talk to other people, not just classmates, friends or family. Sometimes they are even in other states.”
Nina Zolt, founder of Cricket Media, said, “Building on what we have learned from more than 20 years of experience offering students and teachers the opportunity to combine great content with access to caring adult role models, this new platform creates an environment in which students are more motivated to learn as they discover life beyond their neighborhoods, exploring potential careers and interests. This learning experience is fully digital and accessible 24/7—managed in the cloud in a manner to provide safety and security for students, along with the ability for employees to participate from home or office or airport –- wherever they are working!”
CricketTogether is now live with a growing community of eMentors and students from across geographic and demographic boundaries, reading, writing about and discussing Cricket Media’s award-winning content, in many genres and subjects, with each other.
As a socially responsible, mission-driven enterprise, Cricket Media is inviting corporations to engage their employee volunteers as eMentors and sponsor CricketTogether classrooms in grades 3-5 during the 2017-2018 school year. To learn more about CricketTogether or to apply to participate during the 2017-2018 school year, visit www.crickettogether.com or email info@crickettogether.com.
ABOUT CRICKET MEDIA
Cricket Media is an education media company that provides award-winning content on a safe and secure learning network for children, families and teachers across the world. Cricket Media’s 11 popular media brands for toddlers to teens include Babybug®, Ladybug®, Cricket™ and Cobblestone™. The Company’s innovative web-based K12 tools for school and home include the ePals community and virtual classroom for global collaboration as well as Cricket Together, an e-Mentoring program that builds reading, writing and critical thinking skills. Cricket Media serves millions of teachers, students and parents in over 200 countries and territories through its platform and NeuPals, its joint venture with China’s leading IT services company Neusoft. Cricket Media also licenses its content and platform to top publishing and educational companies worldwide. For more information, please visit http://www.cricketmedia.com.
