Elementary students in the Columbus Municipal School District may soon have another mentoring parental figure in their lives — if enough local adults volunteer their time.
United Way of Lowndes County is kickstarting its Classroom Volunteer Impact Partner program, pairing local volunteers with students in CMSD’s elementary classrooms.
United Way Executive Director Danny Avery said he wants to recruit volunteers age 40 or older — parent- or grandparent-aged adults with “life experience” who can lend teachers a hand and provide guidance in a child’s life, whether by listening to the child read or just being an ear for a lonely or frustrated child.
Avery imagines volunteers as people who can comfort children individually while teachers continue instruction. They could take sick children out of the classroom and assist them, or comfort children being bullied or having problems at home.
“(The volunteer) could take this child under his or her wing and nurture and help them have more self confidence,” Avery said. “And we just never know what the long term lifetime impact of that could possibly be.”
Ideally, the volunteers would be in the classroom a few hours a day, five days a week, Avery said, though he knows not everyone will be able to commit to that much time.
One of the program’s goals is getting the community more heavily involved in the schools and providing more support structures for children, CMSD Superintendent Philip Hickman said.
And while volunteers who are parents or former teachers will certainly be welcome, neither of those are requirements. Hickman emphasized the volunteer’s role will not be academic and that he doesn’t expect mentors to act as tutors or disciplinarians. He just wants people who will be there for the kids.
“Sometimes there are too many kids with a silent voice,” he said. “And the teacher, rightfully so, is too busy. And the adults in their lives sometimes are too busy because … they’re sometimes working 16, 18, 19 hours a day just to maintain poverty (level)…It’s just good to have that supporting, older adult that a kid is able to look up to and just to vent to at times and to hear that person say, ‘It’s going to be OK.’ That is almost the heart and soul of it.
“It’s providing a nurturing, supportive adult within the classroom (who is) a second pair of eyes for our students,” he added.
The program is based loosely on the national Head Start-sponsored Foster Grandparent Program, which puts over-55s in classrooms to aid teachers and mentor students. While that program helps, Hickman said, he’d like a mentor in every elementary classroom in the district.
That’s where recruitment comes in. Volunteer Center Director Renee Sanders said the program needs about 50 more applicants to work. She plans to recruit from churches and church groups.
“You have to have a gift to work with children,” Sanders said. “I strongly believe you just can’t say, ‘I’m … going to work with children today.’ In order to be effective at that volunteer opportunity, it has to be a gift, something you have a passion to do.”
Applicants must pass a background check and have a note from a doctor confirming they are healthy enough to volunteer. Before going into a classroom, volunteers will go through brief orientation and training, probably only a couple of hours long, Sanders said.
“Because we’re dealing with children, it’s a little bit more detailed (than other volunteer opportunities),” she said.
For more information on the program or to volunteer, contact Sanders at 328-0943 or [email protected].
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