Even before Mulberry CDC opened in 2007, the dedicated RCMA team from Mulberry has
built strong and lasting relationships with the surrounding community – the families who
make a living, preparing and harvesting crops, and with community service providers who
help them. Since 1965, RCMA has played a critical role in keeping the children of
farmworkers safe and providing them with quality education and development opportunities
while their parents work in the fields. In response to the profound need to extend RCMA
services to school aged students in Mulberry, RCMA converted RCMA’s Mulberry property
on which child development centers have thrived, into a campus that takes a holistic
approach to ensuring academic success for children as young as 6 weeks old, to students
up to the 8 th grade. With the pool of more than
40 preschoolers graduating from Mulberry Child Development Centers and surrounding
RCMA early childhood programs to rise into the new school, the dual language Mulberry
Community Academy will be expanding throughout the coming years to provide support to
kindergarten to 8th grade students. The new campus will continue to be a community center
to serve the families of RCMA, with more capacity to serve as a gathering space, hurricane
shelter, food distribution center, and hub for emergency services. Most importantly, RCMA
students graduate as leaders who are committed to helping the communities that invested
in them. According to new U.S. Census data, Polk County has been one of the fastest-growing areas
in the country for over two years. By expanding RCMA’s presence in Mulberry with RCMA’s
Mulberry Community Academy, school outcomes, high school graduation rates, and
attendance at college or trade schools will be significantly improved.
