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School Readiness Grant Service Project
The purpose of this project is to help the Family Center better meet the
needs of these parents and their pre-school children with funding and
service. After determining that this was a major service need in our
community, this seems to be an excellent response to addressing that
need. Rotarians can effect change in the community by participating in
this program that has a serious need for volunteers and curricular
material. The Rotarians who volunteer will have an opportunity to learn
more about an immigrant population in their community, and assist in
ways they perhaps haven't done in the past.
Financial Assistance:
Teaching culturally diverse children in a school readiness program
requires curricular materials that are not often found in the typical
Eden Prairie classroom setting. As the community of Eden Prairie has
worked to assist this fast- growing school population to be school ready the School Readiness program of the Eden Prairie Family Center
has had growing pains and needs for learning materials and volunteers.
The Eden Prairie School district provides no funding to the program and
state support has been cut by 20% this year.
Volunteering:
The Eden Prairie Noon Rotary Club is excited about volunteering in the
School Readiness program. We hope to assist teachers in the classroom,
both with reading activities, play activities, and music activities. Our
work within the program, the hands-on time and caring of our Rotary
members, will hopefully make a significant impact not only on the
children and families, but also on Rotary members.
Rotarians will volunteer in the pre-school classroom one
morning/afternoon each week or month. Activities that may be done in the
classroom include:
a. Read stories to children and supervise a follow-up literacy
activity.
b. Conduct simple science experiments with one or more children.
c. Help children learn to write their name or other letters.
d. Assist one or more children with an art or craft project
e. Sit with the pre-school children during snack time and engage them
in conversation.
f. Play learning games with one or more children in the areas of math,
literacy, etc.
g. Share a hobby/profession in a pre-school classroom.
h. Play a musical instrument for classroom music time once or on an
ongoing basis.
In addition, as relationships and familiarity are developed, Rotarians
will also offer time to help at special School Readiness Parent-Child
events including assisting parents complete school forms, kindergarten
registration paperwork, etc., helping at picnics and other events.
The ABC House
Our club periodically assists the ABC House with house maintenance
projects. These "repair days" are frequently done alongside a pancake
breakfast for the girls. Materials are provided for repairs.
Valley View Clean-up
Once a year we walk the streets -- just Valley View Road between Highway
4 and Mitchell Road and pick up trash. It takes an hour or two and helps
clean up our community.
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