Challenge Grant Mission Moment

Building Bridges Through Language, Literacy, and Partnership

The Four Oaks Parents as Teachers program out of Dubuque, IA was awarded $12,500 in the Community Responsiveness category. Thanks to funding for marketing materials and translation services, Four Oaks Parents as Teachers has strengthened its partnership with the Lantern Center in Dubuque — an organization dedicated to providing hospitality, education, and advocacy for adult immigrants working to build better lives for themselves and their families.

Through this collaboration, Four Oaks created Parents as Teachers-branded welcome bags for families served at the Lantern Center (photo included). These bags included Parents as Teachers information and child development milestones translated into multiple languages, along with diapers, wipes, hand sanitizer, and family-friendly items designed to encourage connection and literacy, such as a picnic blanket, stuffed animal, and bilingual children’s books. This partnership continues to grow, with Four Oaks Parents as Teachers and the Lantern Center now planning regularly scheduled story time programming for families.

Additional support from the City of Dubuque for LanguageLine phone services allowed Four Oaks Parents as Teachers to maximize grant funding by investing more heavily in translated materials, printing, and bilingual books than originally anticipated. As a result, more families were served, and Four Oaks was able to expand its ESL children’s library.

Parents as Teachers staff worked with LanguageLine to translate outreach flyers and intake documents into Spanish and purchased bilingual books in Spanish, Marshallese, and French. These efforts increased access for families from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds and supported greater participation in Parents as TEachers group sessions through the availability of interpretation services.

Four Oaks staff also joined a local panel on serving unhoused persons to expand outreach, strengthen community partnerships, and learn from other organizations serving diverse populations. Through this collaboration, Four Oaks has increased its capacity to support emerging communities in the region, including the growing Hmong population.

Together, these efforts demonstrate how strategic partnerships and language access can create meaningful connections and expand opportunities for families across the community.