Calvin Receives Good Neighbor Award

November 4, 2004 == MEDIA ADVISORY

Three year's worth of work by Calvin College in the Burton Heights
neighborhood in Grand Rapids is being recognized by the Garfield Park
Neighborhoods Association (GPNA) which will present the college with a "Good
Neighbor" award at 7 p.m. on Monday, November 15 at its annual meeting at
Alternative Directions.

Carol Rienstra, Calvin's director of community relations, will accept the
award for the college.

Calvin began its work in Burton Heights - a neighborhood that falls within the
GPNA's borders - in 2001 via the Calvin@Burton Heights partnership, an effort
funded by a three-year, $399,949 HUD Community Outreach Partnership Center
(COPC) grant.

The partnership allowed students, faculty and staff from several Calvin
departments to work in Burton Heights clinics, homes, schools, businesses and
other organizations. Those efforts are being recognized by the GPNA which
gives Good Neighbor awards annually in five categories.

While honoring Calvin's past efforts in Burton Heights, "the award committee
also recognizes Calvin's continued commitment to working in the neighborhood,"
says Sue DeVries, the executive director of the GPNA.

Calvin's Rienstra says good things are happening in Burton Heights.

"The essence of what is going on in Burton Heights," she says, "is that
nursing, social work, Spanish, business and education faculty, along with many
Calvin students and staff, have benefitted from working and studying in the
neighborhood. Being a good neighbor is easy when you're in a community where
people reciprocate with neighborliness. Calvin folks and Garfield Park
neighbors are growing and learning together."

The college's work in Burton Heights has spanned a wide variety of settings
over the past three years. Calvin nursing students have given flu shots and
performed blood pressure checks, a Calvin urban geography class tackled issues
of traffic calming and walk-ability in the Burton Heights neighborhood, a
Calvin business class created business and marketing plans with Burton Heights
entrepreneurs and, this past September, during StreetFest, incoming students
had the unique job of etching car windows with identification numbers in a
neighborhood-wide theft prevention effort.

And while the original COPC grant to Calvin has now expired the college
commitment to the neighborhood has not.

In fact, Calvin is pioneering some new projects, including "Spanish for
Neighbors," a class for non-Hispanic residents of the area that is taught by a
Calvin senior.

See http://www.calvin.edu/admin/community/copc/index.htm

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Received on Thu Nov 4 10:32:57 2004