Jumpstart

Jumpstart is a federally-funded national early education organization that supports Egan to work in preschools to ensure every child in American enters Kindergarten prepared to succeed. Egan Jumpstart members are trained to provide language, literacy and social-emotional programming for preschool children from under-resourced communities, and to promote quality early learning for all children. We have the unique opportunity to inspire young children to learn, serve in a local community, collaborate with others on a team, and build professional skills. All Egan Jumpstart members receive high-quality training to help them implement Jumpstart’s outcome-based program, promote children’s school success and build family involvement.

Jumpstart Team

Carolina Carrillo, Program Assistant

Carolina works with her team to ensure that the Team Leaders and Corps Members have the materials they need to successfully implement sessions in the classrooms. Together with her team, Carolina reviews the curriculum and makes adjustment to make the materials culturally relevant to the communities Jumpstart works with.

Before working as a Program Assistant, Carolina was a Corps Member and worked directly in the classrooms. She is majoring in Accounting with minors in Finance and Chicago Studies. She hopes to work with more nonprofit organizations in the future.

Cynthia Flores, Team Leader

As a Team Leader Cynthia serves as a mentor to preschool children residing in under-resourced communities and leads 4-6 peers to provide developmentally appropriate educational activities, with a focus on language and literacy, to young children. Cynthia has always had younger cousins and siblings who she took take care of, so being a part of Jumpstart seemed like a perfect role for her.

Cynthia's role in Jumpstart led her to discover her passion for early childhood education. Her future career plans include getting her Bachelor's in Early Childhood Education and becoming a positive influence in children and their families lives.

Jumpstart Sites

Jumpstart Corps members implement the Jumpstart curriculum in preschool classrooms across the country and serve as an aid to teachers. Corps members serve on a team with 5-7 peers and work directly with a local Jumpstart staff member on training, session planning, service opportunities, and more. A typical Jumpstart session follows this routine: Welcome, Reading, Circle Time, Center Time, Let’s Find Out About It, and Sharing and Goodbye.