One of the more positive influences of social media and the Internet — aside from the ability to more easily share cat videos — is crowdfunding, which allows people from all over the world to contribute money to what they deem to be a worthy cause.
Since the first Internet crowdfunding site was created in 2003, more than a dozen of these sites have emerged. In 2014, a study showed Americans contributed an astounding $60,000 per hour through these sites.
Although crowdfunding has become fairly common, we call your attention to one such campaign in West Point, which is currently soliciting contributions through a GoFundMe account.
The Catherine Bryan School in West Point and Mississippi State University’s T.K. Martin Center for Technology and Disability are seeking $50,000 to fund a second year of a program it established during the last school year.
Last school year, the two parties combined to integrate five developmentally disabled Pre-K students interact with seven mainstream Pre-K students during lunch time and recess.
This year, the groups hope to take it a big step forward, fully integrating the two groups of students in a program it calls Inclusive Pre-K Plus. A grant from the Mississippi Department of Education will provide the teacher’s salary. The GoFundMe campaign will provide for a teacher’s assistant and graduate student to help meet the challenges that are sure to emerge in assuring the success of all the students regardless of their abilities.
We applaud this effort for two reasons.
First, we strongly believe in the value of Pre-K education. The evidence of the effectiveness of Pre-K education cannot be disputed, and we welcome and encourage all efforts to make it available to all children. While our state government has been slow to acknowledge — and even slower to fund — these programs, we are encouraged that there are those throughout our state who are determined to build and expand these essential programs.
Second, we are very much supportive of this effort to mainstream special needs students into a regular classroom. We believe all 12 students can benefit from these efforts.
There was a time, not too long ago, when our approach to children with developmental disabilities was to isolate them and keep expectations low. In doing so, we put limits on what these children could achieve. The isolation only served to further stigmatize these children.
Fortunately, in recent years, we have come to realize that these children, given proper support, can achieve far more than we would have ever expected.
All parents want to raise children who are compassionate, empathic and kind. One of the obstacles that we must be overcome in that effort is to expose them to people who are “different.”
It is, after all, human nature to react suspiciously to those things we have never experienced.
Too often, those “different things” are people. A child that is exposed at an early age to children who have those differences — be it sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, religion or disability — will naturally progress from suspicion to understanding. They will be better children and better adults from having had these experiences at so early an age.
We applaud the initiative of these two groups and look forward to seeing the results of their efforts. We suspect all of the children who will attend the Inclusive Pre-K Plus Class in West Point will benefit, both educationally and socially.
The crowdfunding page for this effort can be found at http://www.gofundme.com/uz5w2tag.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 40 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.