By PATRICIA KRAHNKE, guest columnist
The Brown County Literacy Coalition (BCLC) was the grateful recipient of two major gifts this year.
The Fab 50 women chose us to receive their largest grant of $10,000.
Julie and Sean Milloy gifted us the $10,000 which Cummins gives to an organization designated by each of their retirees. Julie has been a tutor for many years and has given a great deal to help Brown County kids. Together, the Milloys have provided financial support for literacy throughout the years, as well. We are so grateful that they chose to continue their support in such a generous way. We are also grateful to Cummins Inc. for enabling this kind of gift to a small organization such as the BCLC.
At the request of our grantors, half of each of these grants has been applied to our Dolly Parton Imagination Library (DPIL) fund. The other half of each is reserved for support of our tutoring program as we try to increase our number of tutors.
In addition, the Brown County Community Foundation and the Lions Club each granted us funds to purchase milk crates for book storage and handling. This has greatly increased the ease of handling large quantities of books and allows us to store books safely and neatly.
Another exciting opportunity for BCLC has been our recent connections with Indiana University. We have spent much of the last several months meeting and discussing ideas that will connect IU departments and students to our tutoring program, research interests and fundraising activities.
Dr. Beth Lewis Samuelson, associate professor in the Department of Literacy, Culture and Language Education, IU Department of Education, brought us two of her students, senior Ying Chen Luh and freshman Amanda Mall, to work with two children at Van Buren Elementary. The IU education students are required to complete weekly reflections on their tutoring sessions, as well as mid-term and end-of-year reports for their class, which they intend to share with us and the school principal, as appropriate.
In an effort to assist Brown County in learning about inequality as it affects the education of its students, we have teamed up with Dr. Angela Chow, assistant professor of applied health science at IU’s School of Public Health. Dr. Chow’s area of research focuses on “mental health/well-being and their development” focusing on “various psychological, social and behavioral determinants of these outcomes in different populations.”
Chow’s research lab has introduced us to master’s degree student Shuhan Yuan, who will be our intern for spring 2019. Together with IU students Max and Samantha, we will be gathering information in pursuit of a major grant that will support Dr. Chow’s research about the influence of one-on-one tutoring on mental and emotional health. Depending upon the success of this grant proposal, we will then pursue funding for other areas of research that may help our community learn more about ways to help Brown County kids thrive.
During the summer, we were approached by Dr. Kirsten Gronbjerg, director of the Indiana NonProfits Project, IU SPEA, wanting to know if we’d be interested in some of her master’s degree students developing a fundraising model for us. We gave them an enthusiastic yes.
Meetings and conversations with Megan Betz, community engagement coordinator for the IU Service Learning Program, Cassie Winslow-Edmonson, director of IU Corps, and Carl Darnell, director of the Balfour Scholars Program in IU’s Center for P-16 Research and Collaboration, have been instrumental in helping us to understand the expanding mechanisms and pathways within IU for attracting their students to tutor our children.
The video production class of James Krause, senior lecturer, IU Media School, connected us with two IU students, Lexis Petsalis and Connor Patrick, who have videotaped our tutors and others talking about their experience tutoring. Our intention is to use some of these video segments to attract more IU students to our tutoring program. Beginning in January, we will be a presence at all IU events that showcase service learning opportunities. Our intention is that over the next few years, the opportunity for IU students to work with Brown County kids is recognized as an academically critical and personally rewarding experience within many IU academic departments and service learning groups.
So many wonderful individuals, organizations, business owners and churches in our community give in so many ways throughout the year to support the Brown County Literacy Coalition. In particular, we’d like to give a shout-out to Jonathan Bolte, Jane Huffman and Rita Simon for assistance with book sorting; Greg Fox of Nashville Spice Company, which underwrites our parade floats; artist Mark Schmidt, who designs and directs the building of our floats; Everett Kunzelman, who consistently steps up to support us in every way possible; Lori Williams and Annie Fife for assistance with book distribution at events; Bill Mollin, Eric and Lisa Robertson, Tammy and Donnie Yacchari, Kady Lane, Michelle Damrell and Chuck Wills for always being ready to lend a hand; to Simon and Schuster for donating 500 brand-new Spanish/English books for us to hand out during the Unity in Diversity-themed Spring Blossom Parade; to Susan Sondergard-Jilek, a visitor to Nashville from Michigan, who visited our book fair, loved what we are doing, helped us out during the sale, and ordered us more crates via her phone while standing in the middle of the event; and many others for always being there to help.
A big thank-you also goes to Debbie Kelley, our volunteer of the year, who provided child-protection training for our tutors; Alane Lovell and Shari Frank for assisting with the transition of the tutoring program back to the literacy office; to Lynn Austin for her expertise in child neurodevelopment, grant writing, research assistance and database development; to Maria Steenberger for help with thinking through possible approaches to IU departments; to librarians Stori Snyder and Emmy Blackwell for enthusiastically partnering with us to try new ideas in support of Brown County kids; to Tyler Kelp for keeping our meetings on track; to Marilyn Day for helping us think through grant ideas; to Larry Pejeau, retired director of the Brown County Community Foundation, for being a great champion of early childhood educational development in Brown County; the principals and staff of our elementary, intermediate and junior high schools for their continued trust during a hectic time of tutoring leadership transition; to Jenise Bohbrink for her dedication; to Barbara Young, our board president, for her fearless leadership; and to Dr. Laura Hammack for her support of our efforts to find powerful, sustainable ways of supporting our children’s reading goals.
But the biggest cheer goes to our tutors, who work tirelessly year after year to provide critical reading intervention to Brown County’s littlest citizens: Shari Frank, Nancy Schmutzler, Rita Simon, Becky Minniear, Debbie Kelley, Jonathan Bolte, Karen Franklin, Donna Ormiston, Laurie Teal, Bob Westbrook, Joan Amati, Joe Miller, Gloria Berryman, Julie Milloy, David Cole, Jeff Mooney, Caren Senesac, Joan Wright, Kim Young, and IU Service-Learning students Samantha McDowell and AnnaKay Blaschke.
The challenges to the children in our county are multifaceted and sometimes seem insurmountable. For anyone outside the school system or social services who does not have regular contact with kids, it’s impossible to imagine how difficult many of their lives are. The one way to help ensure that children have the best shot at living a productive, fulfilled life is ensuring they are able to read. Reading is the bedrock of communication, of understanding instructions, ideas, contracts, math, science, medical prescriptions, and everything else about the world around them.
If they don’t hit their reading benchmarks by the end of third grade, chances are they will struggle exponentially throughout the rest of their school years to understand their schoolwork and all that is being asked of them. Lack of reading comprehension can result in classroom behaviors that can affect other students’ ability to learn. In turn, it can lead to depression, which can then lead to substance abuse and self-harm, as well as social stigma.
Want to help us make sure every Brown County child is supported in their reading goals?
$25 covers the cost of Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library books per child for a year.
$14,000 covers the cost of the entire Brown County DPIL program for a year.
$150 covers the cost for an IU student to come to our elementary schools for a semester.
$300 covers the cost of a new Little Free Library for areas of the county that still need one.
$18 pays for a new background check for each of our tutors, who must now renew their background check each year.
Any amount that is designated “unrestricted” goes toward promoting literacy throughout our county via events, marketing and book distribution at doctors offices, social service agencies and parades.
Our biggest Christmas wish this year? A donated, large, enclosed trailer that will make it easy to sort, store and transport our books to schools and events. Descriptions of donation options are on our website at bcliteracycoalition.org.
Want to learn more about what we’re doing? Contact us at [email protected] or 812-988-6960.
