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Daemen Awarded Grant from The Children's Foundation of Erie County
Daemen College has been awarded $3625 from The Children's Foundation of Erie County to provide quality supplies and back packs for 145 low-income youth who will participate in two-week summer reading camps in the Seneca Babcock and Fruit Belt neighborhoods. Cheryl Bird, Sharon Benz , and Liz Wright collaborated to author the proposal.
Since 2004, The Center for Sustainable Communities & Civic Engagement (CSCCE) at Daemen has partnered with The Reynolds Center to provide a two-week summer reading camps. Buffalo is the second poorest large city in the nation. Nearly 43% of the city's children live in poverty (2006 Census). The need for reading programs in Buffalo, and particularly the target neighborhoods where Daemen has partnerships, cannot be overstated. The targeted neighborhoods contain schools “In Need of Improvement” in the area of English Language Arts (ELA). In fact, the entire Buffalo Public Schools district has been named a “District in Need of Improvement” in the area of English Language Arts. In addition, approximately 15% of the students (5,500 total) enrolled in the Buffalo Public Schools have identified, educationally-related disabilities.
The reading camps will be offered again in Seneca Babcock and the Fruit Belt. Youth will participate in a two-week reading camp led by graduate student tutors and volunteer retired teachers. Additional volunteers--community members, parents, and students--will assist with preparing the back packs, classroom activities, and the graduation event. CSCCE staff will coordinate recruitment and enrollment. The curriculum of the reading camp specifically emphasizes decoding and word recognition skills. The Daemen graduate tutors and volunteer teachers use elements of The Wilson Reading System, which directly and systematically teaches students how to fluently and accurately decode in a manner that is fun and enjoyable. At the end of the camp, the children will receive a new back pack filled with new school supplies, funded by the Children's Foundation of Erie County. The camps will take place July 7-17, 2008 in the Fruit Belt at the Smith Family Life Center and July 28-August 7, 2008 at Seneca Street Church in Seneca Babcock.
For more information, contact Cheryl Bird at cbird@daemen.edu or Liz Wright at ewright2@daemen.edu.