Bethany Dages HAT Community Involvement June 27, 2019 1 Bethany Dages Community Agencies Throughout this assignment of walking our neighborhood and determining what strings I might be able to pull to further involve the community in our school, I have found that there aren’t many resources within two miles of Ramsey Middle School. Within two miles of our school are an elementary school, two three churches and a senior living campus. This is not many options to have with considering trying to pull in the community. However, when that radius was expanding to just five miles, it opened up an entire world of opportunities! These opportunities ranged from gas stations, restaurants, faith organizations, banks and other financial institutions, parks and even hygiene facilities such as hair and nail salons. One of the first organizations I would like to discuss is the member we share a parking lot with, literally. Farmer Elementary is located in the back of our parking lot. This is an organization we coordinate a lot of events with from CEP care, to sharing a half day band and orchestra, a speech pathologists and our youth service center coordinator, but also events that involve our students reaching out to help teach and prepare their students. Another location that helps to support the needs of our school is the Eastside World Praise Center. This church is located less than a mile from Ramsey and serves as our emergency evacuation and pick up site for parents should there be a need to leave our school for safety reasons. The next agency that will allow us meet one of our new missions of our school is the Glen Ridge Health campus. We are adding a sixth component to our backpack centered around being a community service oriented scholar. They are always open to allowing our students to come over to play concerts to their senior residents, play board games or even collaborate on crafts and cards with them. Our students always find this time very rewarding and it they are a great partner for our students to be able to give back to the community. 2 Bethany Dages Three organizations I have seen our school utilize in the past are RecBar, 3rd Turn and Chubby Rays. These three locations are all in the heart of Jeffersontown and have been the host to many of our staff outings or lunches as means to boost morale and involve teachers with each other outside of the classroom or school. These venues have been great for relationship building for our staff. Next year I would like to get a team of sand volleyball players together from our staff to join a league up at JTown Beach. Fiesta Time Amigos and Chic Fil A have been huge members of our PTSA and allowed us to do many fundraiser each year, PTA Nights, in which families can go and have dinner showing a flier that allows these two businesses to donate 10-15% of their sales back to our school. This is huge in funding for our activities we throw for our students at the end of the year, as well as providing the supports to purchase every student their agendas at the beginning of each school year. This helps to support our mission of being successful students by helping them to be organized from day one. A few other restaurants that have been influential in our school is Mark’s Feed Store and Qdoba. These two restaurants have provided us with free entrée coupons in the past to give out as rewards for students on honor roll, with perfect attendance or whatever other recognition we see fit. They are also typically alternated for who caters our faculty appreciation lunch once a year. Site for Volunteer Hours I completed all ten of my hours at Crestwood Christian Childcare Center located at Crestwood Christian Church in Lexington, Kentucky. They are a non-profit organization that services kids from age six weeks to twelve years. I was lucky enough to have previous connections with the Director of Childcare there. She is somewhat the principal of that facility. She has twenty-four teachers, one assistant and two cafeteria employees. Over the summer, when I visited, there were 78 children in attendance on the first day and 74 on the second. The children are divided in to room based on age, six months and younger, six months to a year, one, two, pre-school and school aged. I am not sure of their exact budget, but being non-profit she told me it wasn’t much. They do a lot for the kids, especially over the summer to keep 3 Bethany Dages them learning and entertained. The first day I was there the school age children six years and old were attending a field trip to a nearby fire station. This was a free field trip as it was a half mile walk and then the firefighters were there to give tour for free and allow children to ask questions. The second day I spent there she had ordered an inflatable jumper for the children to play in. The kids were very excited as they chattered in the halls heading out to play. I spent majority of my time interacting with her, discussing the various rooms, ages and regulations involved with childcare. This included some emergencies that came up and us helping to cover rooms to keep them in ratio. We also took a look and I was able to give her some perspective of unpacking, organizing and creating systems for the new curriculum they will be teaching in the fall with the infants up to the early child education kids. I helped her to develop systems for teachers checking out books and lesson plans and also discussed misconceptions teachers may have with teaching the material and how to put on her version of professional development for her staff. This was a very eye opening experience to see the relationships she has with her employees, the connections she has with the community and the leadership she embodies of wanting to do what is best for kids. 4
