Bethany Dages
HAT
Community Involvement
June 27, 2019
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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.
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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
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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.
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