JumpStart

The mission of Mount Mercy University’s JumpStart Summer Academy is to inspire children of Cedar Rapids to reach their educational potential by teaching vital lessons in leadership and academics – through the support of mentors and role models – as part of free sports programming at the Robert W. Plaster Athletic Complex. We started this program during the Summer of 2018 with five college coaches and 27 community youth. We invite the children to our campus three days a week for six weeks throughout the summer where they receive a free meal, interact with community members to learn about leadership as well as life skills, and engage with our college coaches in outdoor activities to keep them active.

Thanks to the generosity of the DeWolf family and Lil’ Drug Store Products, we were able to utilize the three-year gift to hire a full-time Director of Jump Start, Jason Pershing, who also serves as our Assistant Director of Athletics. Under this leadership, we have been able to expand the program the last three years, even continuing operations during the pandemic. During that time, we have increased the number of children from our community to over 130 during our summer program and an additional 50 during our academic year programming which includes mentoring, a lunch buddy program in the district, and attendance at home events. Furthermore, we created a running club at Garfield Elementary School with our coaches and our Mount Mercy University Track & Field team.

Additionally, we measure our success in other ways including an assessment (below) that measures the impact the program has on their future goals and mentorship. Each year, we also “hire” Mount Mercy University students in the program as coaches where they learn about leadership, event planning, and giving back to the community they are a part of; the first year of the program we had five coaches and this year we had 17. Each of those students receive free housing for the summer, a 3-credit internship, as well as a $1,300 scholarship through a partnership with AmeriCorps; this has resulted in over $54,000 in new scholarships for our students over the last three years.

We’ve hired 17 coaches. Below are the sports or extracurriculars they have been a part of at MMU:

• 2 Women's Basketball
• 3 Women's Soccer
• 3 Women's Track & Cross Country
• 5 Men's Basketball
• 1 Choir
• 1 Band
• 1 Men's Soccer
• 1 Graduate Assistant

We’ve had 17 different guest speakers with a wide variety of skills and professional experiences. Below is a list of their professions or prior activities that made them great at speaking with the kids. 

• Super Bowl Winner/Professional Football player
• Former Hawkeye Basketball Player
• Politician/Mayor of CR candidate
• Female business owner
• Vice President of MMU
• Coach
• Diversity, Equity & Inclusion professional on campus
• Academic Success coordinator
• Director of Head Start in Tri County

Jason Pershing
Director
JumpStart
www.mtmercy.edu/why-mount-mercy/cedar-rapids/jumpstart

---

Back to Project List