Our History

The Golden Cubs was founded in 2009 on the three basic principles of recognizing, rewarding and reinforcing academic and personal growth. These principles were adopted as the cornerstone of the Golden Cubs in light of its founder’s previous experience in working with Berkeley Elementary schools, students, parents and educational advisors. Through this experience, it gradually became evident that if teachers could recognize positive development and reward their students by providing them with fun and exciting incentives that were academically focused, the importance of a higher education and hard work would essentially be positively reinforced.

In May of 2009 a partnership was developed between the Golden Cubs and the UC Berkeley Athletic Department and with this bond two families became one. With this newfound relationship also came the opportunity to expose our Golden Cubs students and their parents to the academic wonders of the University and the “Golden Bear” students of Cal while also rewarding them after each academic tour with a trip to a Cal sporting event.

Through the strong and loving relationships that our staff had previously developed at the Elementary School level, we promoted our initial event within the classrooms at Washington Elementary School. On November 14th 2009 we held our first event and we rewarded those third, fourth, and fifth grade students who had made great efforts to academically improve. Each rewarded student toured the campus of UC Berkeley with our Golden Cubs staff and attended a Cal Football game where they were recognized on the field during the game for their achievements. The culmination of each students hard work, persistence, and dedication in reaching their goals leading up to this exciting day led to a great sense of accomplishment experienced by each child. With this display of inner growth came the realization of the wonderful impact that the combination of these principles coupled with academically focused rewards can have on a young students life.

The opportunity to visit the Cal campus, interact with university students, teachers and staff, and attend a sporting event is our manner of conveying to the young students that even though they are only Golden Cubs today that they can certainly someday become “Golden Bears” or an excellent student at any other University that he or she wishes to attend. This type of vision and growth is what we passionately seek to inspire within each student and parent every day! We welcome you to join our family and support the efforts of each Golden Cub we work with!