From: Phil deHaan (dehp@calvin.edu)
Date: Thu Sep 12 2002 - 12:59:22 EDT
September 13, 2002 == FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Young students at Sigsbee Park Elementary School will benefit from a recent
$2,000 grant to Calvin College from the Michigan Campus Compact (based in
Lansing). The money will be used to strengthen the partnership between Calvin,
Sigsbee and Sherman Street Christian Reformed Church.
Students in Education 191 will join volunteers from Sherman Street CRC in the
Sigsbee Library, helping the students make connections between the library's
resources and what they're learning in the classroom. The money also will be
used to hire a curriculum writer, who will create lesson plans for the library
volunteers.
Grant recipient Jeff Bouman, the new director of Calvin's Service-Learning
Center, says the grant is an appropriate one for a school year that the Grand
Rapids Public Schools have centered on the theme of literacy.
Folks at Sigsbee are already excited about the program. Principal Mildred
Willis says that the library program is a valuable part of her students'
educations. Learning to do research and use reference materials, she says,
helps them get ready for middle school. And learning how to use the school
library also makes it easier for them to then go to a public library,
Sigsbee's library was renovated in the spring of 2001 but the school has no
money to staff it. They turned at that time to Sherman Street, a neighborhood
church that had previously helped the school with small projects like a garden
habitat. Church volunteers each dedicated one or two hours a week to reading to
children and leading library-related activities at Sigsbee. But by the end of
the year the church still felt like it lacked the expertise to help students get
the most possible out of the library. It turned to Calvin for advice and
together the church, the college and Sigsbee put together the recently funded
grant which now will bring together all three partners for the 2002-2003 school
year (and hopefully beyond).
Contact Jeff Bouman at 957-6455
~with reporting by media relations student writer Abe Huyser-Honig
-end-
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