The Molina Foundation is a 501(c)(3) foundation with the mission to reduce disparities in access to education and healthcare by underserved populations. They seek to enhance learning and educational performance through the promotion of family literacy, math competency, and teacher effectiveness by providing replicable and sustainable models that enhance access to education and reinforcement of activities shown to improve student achievement is one of the overarching goals of The Molina Foundation.
Dr. Martha Bernadett, the founder of the Molina Foundation, is the eldest daughter of the late Dr. C. David Molina, the founder of Molina Healthcare, Inc. Both Dr. David Molina and his wife Mary were elementary school teachers prior to Dr. David Molina’s return to medical school. Thus, Dr. Bernadett, or “Dr. Martha” as she is known, and her siblings were raised with a deep value for education.
As a Family Physician, Dr. Martha understood the importance of literacy and education in overcoming health disparities. In addition, as the Principal Investigator of a demonstration project funded by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Hablamos Juntos (We Speak Together) Program, she understood the barriers to health access faced by those with limited English proficiency.
In 2003, Dr. Martha started a program to provide books to children without access to books in an effort to improve literacy of children to help them overcome barriers to healthcare access and impact their long-term overall health status. This program was called Book Buddies. Through support and partnership of similar 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations, Book Buddies grew and grew, establishing itself as a cornerstone of literacy efforts throughout California.
To address these important issues in an ongoing and sustainable manner, Dr. Martha Bernadett formed The Molina Foundation in August, 2004.
The Molina Foundation’s 4 programs are:
I. Book Buddies
Book Buddies™ Literacy Program: This program has distributed about 1,000,000 new or gently used books since 2003 and was the one of the reasons driving the formation of The Molina Foundation. Through this program, they have identified and distributed hundreds of thousands of books through schools, libraries, community based organizations, hospitals and health care facilities. These books are distributed where cohorts of children and adults have been identified at high risk for low literacy, primarily due to poverty or prevalence of English as a second language.
II. Step Up to Math
The Step-Up-to-Math program targets 6th graders who are at the Basic level on the California Standards Tests (CST) in math and may include English Language Learners. The program has three objectives:
1. To motivate and encourage students to increase math skills
2. To attain proficiency in math for the rigors of 6th grade pre-algebra
3. To encourage parents to give positive messages while tracking their student’s school work.
Step-Up-to-Math is a model that can be applied wherever qualified and interested high school students and middle school students are already gathered in a supervised setting.
II. Experience Counts
Experience Counts is part of the Molina Foundation. The goal of Experience Counts is to support current school educators and administrators by sharing the expertise of experienced retired administrators and educators.
Experience Counts helps through:
* Support advice online.
* Support by phone.
* In person mentoring.
* Free seminars.
IV. Everybody Writes
Everybody Writes a program of The Molina Foundation that produces writing conferences to encourage children to write.
Everybody Writes is a program designed to inspire children to write outside the classroom by offering exciting and engaging activities through which the children do not realize they are learning while writing.
The conferences and program is conducted by authors, literacy specialists and engaging teachers.
To find out more about the Molina Foundation Please visit their website: www.molinafoundation.org
