September 13, 2004 == MEDIA ADVISORY
A three-year grant to Calvin College from the Office of University
Partnerships of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that has
supported college involvement in the Burton Heights neighborhood in Grand
Rapids is about to run out.
But residents of Burton Heights aren't worried. Calvin has agreed to continue
to support many of the projects between the college and Burton Heights that are
part of the Calvin@ Burton Heights partnership.
And on September 30 college officials will gather with residents and community
leaders to celebrate the last three years and look ahead to the future.
The event will be an open house at the partnership headquarters at 1725 S.
Division from 4 to 6 pm on September 30.
In 2001 the Calvin@ Burton Heights partnership was created as a result of a
$399,000 grant that brought together Calvin and the Garfield Development
Corporation, the Garfield Park Neighborhoods Association, the Burton Heights
Business Association, the Grand Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce Neighborhood
Business Specialists Program, Buchanan Elementary School, the Burton Health
Clinic and Health Intervention Services.
The original idea for the partnership, says Carol Rienstra, Calvin's director
of community relations, came from Garfield Development Corporation, asking the
college to make a stronger commitment to the kind of community service Calvin
was already doing.
"We have students, staff and faculty involved all over Grand Rapids," Rienstra
says, "but (through this partnership) we were challenged to be more focused and
to get to know a particular neighborhood's agencies and people at a deeper
level."
The plan, as mapped out by the Burton community leaders and Calvin's community
partnership team, concentrated on four main areas: health, education, community
organizing and housing and business district development
So, for example, Calvin nursing students worked with Health Intervention
Services and the Cherry Street Health Services' Burton Clinic and also taught
basic health and nutrition classes at Burton School and other locations.
Calvin computer science professors and students created a science-based
computer curriculum for fourth graders at Buchanan School and offered computer
classes to the neighborhood as part of the education focus.
Calvin geography professor Henk Aay and his students mapped traffic patterns
and made recommendations for traffic-calming measures as part of the
contribution from Burton Heights to the Grand Rapids' master plan.
The computer lab will stay as will the computer classes. Calvin nursing
students will continue their service in the Burton Heights neighborhood. And
there is a new and exciting piece to the education focus: through a $179,000
Teacher Quality Grant from the Michigan Department of Education, Calvin
educators will work with Buchanan School and Potter's House Christian School to
teach the Four Blocks literacy model, the Grand Rapids Public Schools' adopted
method of teaching reading and writing. Rienstra also looks forward to Calvin
efforts to teach SSL- Spanish as a Second Language- to the non-Hispanic
residents of Burton Heights who want to better communicate with their
neighbors.
Contact Carol Rienstra at 616-526-6175
-end-
Received on Mon Sep 13 11:26:45 2004
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