Mountain Brook local earns Game Changer Award

Every year, the Vulcan Community Awards honor Birmingham-area residents who have gone above and beyond for their community. One of their five annual awards is the Game Changer Award. 

Typically, the phrase “game changer” refers to an outlying factor that reshapes a situation in a significant, positive way. A game changer can refer to an unforeseen event, an element of surprise or an unassuming person — like Jim Wooten. 

Wooten previously helped operate Children’s Fresh Air Farm, a summer camp for underprivileged children that was started by the Independent Presbyterian Church Foundation while Wooten was executive director. While speaking with campers’ families, Wooten said he learned their greatest need was access to furthering education.

“The summer program was changed to a six-week day camp. The mornings were devoted to academics, while the afternoons were for traditional camp activities,” Wooten said.

The results from the first year of academic inclusion in 2010, what he refers to as a pilot program, showed that the inclusion of education in a summer program could help close the academic performance gap, while still giving the benefits of a traditional summer camp.

From this first-year pilot program, Wooten’s brainchild was born — Summer Adventures in Learning, or SAIL.

“We were excited about the results of the Fresh Air Farm pilot, and wanted to support more learning programs, but found almost none in Birmingham,” he said. “So we took a step that was new for us.”

Instead of sitting back and playing the traditional grant-maker role and supporting already existing programs, Wooten said he and the foundation began openly promoting summer learning, recruiting new programs and inviting other foundations to join the cause. 

According to a study by Johns Hopkins, 67 percent of the academic performance gap from children of low-income families can be attributed to the three months of summer where learning falls to the wayside.

“We knew from our success at the Fresh Air Farm (and from many cities across the nation) that we can turn that loss into a two- to three-month gain, and give a substantial boost to the academic performance of our students,” Wooten said. 

By fall 2012, six foundations agreed to support learning programs for the 2013 summer, and SAIL had provided more than $500,000 in support of 19 programs for that year. Four years later, SAIL has amassed 11 funders that support more than 50 summer programs, and it has grown geographically while giving more than $2.8 million in grants to support summer learning, he said.

“SAIL is itself a community, a collaboration of many different interests, from all around Birmingham (and beyond), coming together to achieve a common goal,” Wooten said. “[Earning the Game Changer Award] is gratifying in the extreme.” 

For the future, he said he plans to pursue historical research for the Birmingham Museum of Art and continue his work with SAIL, which is set to expand to Huntsville. 

“In general, we all have gifts to contribute, and when we join with others who share our passion and priorities to pursue common goals, it gives us a sense of meaning, keeps us young and helps Birmingham become a better place,” Wooten said.