The SAAB organization launches "SAAB Toledo Book Club"  
 

Established by Dr. Bledsoe to promote "Readership" amongst our young males of color, the SAAB Toledo Book Club is the first of SAAB Book Clubs to reach across the country through SAAB Chapters.

This new program is created based on evidence of many studies that indicates this population struggles in the area of reading. Research also shows that reading as a teen leads to success. Read full story . . .

Dr. Bledsoe pictured above with book club members from  middle and high schools in the Toledo Public School system.

SAAB is extremely pleased to recognize the Toledo Public Schools (TPS) system for having the most SAAB chapters within a K-12 system. TPS has 15 SAAB chapters within their system to include (8 high schools and 7 middle schools). We are please that the TPS Superintendent and School Board fully supports our partnership and expansion project within the system.

There are so many exciting stories that we decided to open an all new SAAB Chapter News Section just so we can cover all the activity going on around the country. Read about the exciting new Chapter additions to the SAAB Family

”The Toledo, Ohio SAAB Chapter members participated in the annual joint celebration of The City of Toledo and  The University of Toledo's 'Unity Day' honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. - January, 2009. Local Channel 24 News provides video coverage and news article "Realizing Dr. King's dream through SAAB." SAAB Founder and Executive Director, Dr. Tyrone Bledsoe is basking in the glory of President-elect Obama, but says there is still work to be done.  "I'm challenging people to take it as a social responsibility to reach out and help those who have fallen by the wayside." By participating in service learning, SAAB's term for community service, and then we all get something back suggests Dr. Bledsoe. A thought process resonating with J.P. "You can't just sit around and think everything is going to happen. You have to get out there and do work, you have to help with your community if you want to make it a better place." There are no more excuses says Dr. Bledsoe, "I never thought there were excuses in the first place, but now I always say to my students, now you definitely don't have an excuse."  Read the Channel 24 Editorial.

SAAB is featured in the October 06, 2008 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education for its work with African American male students in colleges and high schools around the country. In the article entitled "Colleges Seek Key to Success of Black Men in Classroom" the need to reach out to African American men is highlighted and how SAAB’s provides a strong positive response to that need.

July, 2008 - SAAB is honored to announce the support of a $725,000 grant received from the Lumina Foundation for Education to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the SAAB program. SAAB will be partnering with the OMG Center for Collaborative Learning, a non-profit consulting firm based in Philadelphia, to conduct the evaluation. OMG will partner with SAAB to build a system to evaluate the program’s effectiveness. OMG will evaluate the program’s impact on college access and student success in its chapters and work with SAAB to increase its capacity to collect data for the assessment of program effectiveness on an ongoing basis. “An evaluation system will provide us with critical data to help us understand our program’s effectiveness” says Dr. Tyrone Bledsoe, SAAB’s founder and executive director. “Armed with that understanding, we can make more informed decisions about programming and chapter work and can share the results of the SAAB work with stakeholders, such as funders, universities and other key partners, and researchers in the field.”  For more information, contact Dr. Bledsoe at 419.530.3221 or tbledsoe@saabnational.org. 

SAAB University of Toledo - Ohio Chapter was featured for it's outstanding work in the latest DiverseEducation.com article, SAAB tackling the Black, Brown Male Crisis.

SAAB is proud to continue its recognition of its partnership with the South Metropolitan Higher Education Consortium (SMHEC) for launching  seven (7) new individual institutional SAAB chapters throughout the greater Chicago area. The SMHEC continues to work toward a regional approach in addressing the achievement gaps for African American and Latino males. Seven of its 15-member institutions have agreed to form SAAB chapters on their respective campuses to include Governors State University, Prairie State College, Kankakee Community College, University of Saint Francis, Joliet Junior College, Northwest Business College and South Suburban College. The SMHEC has a diverse membership with institutions to include 2-year, 4-year, private and public in nature.

SAAB recognizes its founder, Dr. Tyrone Bledsoe, for being selected by the Ashoka Organization as one of the leading social innovators in the world. Ashoka is a global association of leading social entrepreneurs---men and women with innovative and practical ideas for addressing the most urgent social problems in the world. Since its founding in 1980, Ashoka has provided start-up financing, professional support services, and connection to a global peer network for more than 1800 leading social entrepreneurs in over 60 countries. Dr. Bledsoe is 1 of only 16 Ashoka fellows chosen from the United States this year and was officially inducted at a ceremony hosted by Google in San Jose, California, held on November 14, 2006.

SAAB congratulates Dr. Tyrone Bledsoe for being recognized by the Northwest Black Media Association (NBMA) of Ohio at the annual NBMA banquet held May 11, 2007, for his service (through SAAB) in the community locally, regionally and nationally.

SAAB is proud to announce the continued support from the Lumina Foundation for Education for its continued support and commitment to our shared mission by their recent grant of $750,000 to the Indiana University System to expand SAAB throughout the state of Indiana. SAAB looks forward to working with the Lumina Foundation and the Indiana University System to address the low rates of high school and postsecondary persistence and graduation rates of African American males in the state of Indiana. The Indiana Expansion Project will kick-off during the 2007-08 school year. Stay tuned for more updates about this initiative. For more information on the Lumina Foundation, please visit www.luminafoundation.org.