Helping Area Children Focus Of Women Who Care
June 18, 2021 at 9:54 p.m.
Helping Area Children Focus Of Women Who Care
By Jackie Gorski-
The event was put on by United Way at Tippy Creek Winery, Leesburg.
Women Who Care started three years ago, when United Way asked the question of how it can get women involved in volunteering, giving back and helping kids, said Juli Eckel, chair for United Way. “And we definitely knew that we needed to change because our community is changing. And we knew we needed to change how we involved women to build a bigger table that women could come to and help our kids and make their future a little bit brighter.”
She said it started out as an event and became a movement. “We have women who are volunteering helping kids in ways that we can not have anticipated and it has gone past our original idea of what we could do as women who care.”
Eckel said the event was to celebrate women’s creativity and women’s ability to help.
At the heart of United Way’s initiatives is the question: How can our community help along children on some of their most difficult days?, according to Santina Spiteri, from Silveus Insurance Group. The last 18 months have been very difficult due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Spiteri introduced several people to talk about programs or events that are intended to help children.
The first program was Start United, which is an ongoing effort program for pre-kindergarten students who are entering kindergarten, said Spiteri.
Dr. Dani Barkey, assistant superintendent for secondary schools at Warsaw Community Schools, and United Way board member, asked those in attendance to remember how excited they or their children were for certain things, like riding the bus or meeting the child’s teacher for the first time. She said not every child has those excited feelings when they go to school for the first time because they’re scared because they haven’t had the benefit of prekindergarten program, or even Sunday school.
“Some of our kids come to school not ready to learn,” Barkey said. Some of the students don’t know how to form lines and come unprepared. It makes it difficult for them to learn.
Start United is in Warsaw, Whitley County Consolidated and Wawasee schools that serves “200 of our neediest students” to help prepare them for kindergarten during the summer.
Carla Milliman, Warsaw teacher, said WCS’ program started seven years ago. Superintendent Dr. David Hoffert had the idea of doing a bootcamp for kindergarten students who didn’t have the opportunity to go to preschool to get them ready for kindergarten. Hoffert suggested Milliman teach the program. She said she had been teaching at that point for 26 years and she told Hoffert the school corporation doesn’t hire teachers that had been teaching for that long for things like that because then the teacher would have been “paid too much for summer school.” Hoffert told Milliman it was in the budget.
Milliman described her experiences with the program. She said the first day is usually like herding cats, as the students are all over the place.
“By the end of the 17 days, I found it was the most rewarding job there was,” Milliman said. “I taught kindergarten for 33 years and I love to teach that three weeks of summer school just as much as a year of kindergarten just to see the growth in those children.”
Milliman said it’s not that the children can’t or don’t want to learn, it’s they haven’t had the opportunity to. United Way gave those students an opportunity to go to school and get a little bit of start.
Another initiative that was talked about was the Fill It Up initiative. It is an initiative that came out of COVID, Eckel said. The initiative helps volunteers give back to children who have a “true need in an active way.”
Fill It Up does this through things like its Good Night Boxes. The boxes are filled with items like a blanket, teddy bear, tooth brush, tooth paste and books, Eckel said. It is supposed to help give the children something that belongs to them.
The boxes are given to children that arrive at the shelter in the area, Eckel said.
People can take a box and fill it up with items and give it back to United Ways, Eckel said.
Another initiative that was talked about was Camp Hope.
Laura Robertson, Warsaw Community Church, said WCC will be able to partner with United Way and Ryan’s Place in July to help put on Camp Hope. She said the reality “so many of our kids” are facing is the death of a loved one. The point of the camp is to meet the child where they’re at and help them along, Robertson said.
Aileac Deegan, Ryan’s Place, said Camp Hope is a weeklong day camp starting July 19. They are hoping to help 100 children during the camp.
Deegan said approximately one in 12 children “are bereaved of a parent or a sibling by the age of 18.” This past year has “been extremely stressful for a lot of children for many, many ways.” Ryan’s Place has been in operation for 20 years, so they know how to help children, Deegan said.
People haven’t been able to see people in nursing homes, hospice, the hospital or possibly go to funerals because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Deegan said. Due to that, dealing with death has been hard with children.
An event discussed was the 2021 Big Give.
Lori Shipman, United Way Board member and of Lori Shipman Consulting, said the purpose now is to help students get all the supplies they need to help them be ready to learn.
Last year, 1,100 backpacks were filled for area students, Shipman said. Since the Big Give has expanded its service territory, this year, the event plans to serve 20 schools and wants to get 100 backpacks filled for each school, totaling 2,000 backpacks. Shipman said the Big Give already had 1,300 backpacks committed and needs 700 more to be filled.
For more information, go to https://www.unitedwaykosciusko.org.
The event was put on by United Way at Tippy Creek Winery, Leesburg.
Women Who Care started three years ago, when United Way asked the question of how it can get women involved in volunteering, giving back and helping kids, said Juli Eckel, chair for United Way. “And we definitely knew that we needed to change because our community is changing. And we knew we needed to change how we involved women to build a bigger table that women could come to and help our kids and make their future a little bit brighter.”
She said it started out as an event and became a movement. “We have women who are volunteering helping kids in ways that we can not have anticipated and it has gone past our original idea of what we could do as women who care.”
Eckel said the event was to celebrate women’s creativity and women’s ability to help.
At the heart of United Way’s initiatives is the question: How can our community help along children on some of their most difficult days?, according to Santina Spiteri, from Silveus Insurance Group. The last 18 months have been very difficult due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Spiteri introduced several people to talk about programs or events that are intended to help children.
The first program was Start United, which is an ongoing effort program for pre-kindergarten students who are entering kindergarten, said Spiteri.
Dr. Dani Barkey, assistant superintendent for secondary schools at Warsaw Community Schools, and United Way board member, asked those in attendance to remember how excited they or their children were for certain things, like riding the bus or meeting the child’s teacher for the first time. She said not every child has those excited feelings when they go to school for the first time because they’re scared because they haven’t had the benefit of prekindergarten program, or even Sunday school.
“Some of our kids come to school not ready to learn,” Barkey said. Some of the students don’t know how to form lines and come unprepared. It makes it difficult for them to learn.
Start United is in Warsaw, Whitley County Consolidated and Wawasee schools that serves “200 of our neediest students” to help prepare them for kindergarten during the summer.
Carla Milliman, Warsaw teacher, said WCS’ program started seven years ago. Superintendent Dr. David Hoffert had the idea of doing a bootcamp for kindergarten students who didn’t have the opportunity to go to preschool to get them ready for kindergarten. Hoffert suggested Milliman teach the program. She said she had been teaching at that point for 26 years and she told Hoffert the school corporation doesn’t hire teachers that had been teaching for that long for things like that because then the teacher would have been “paid too much for summer school.” Hoffert told Milliman it was in the budget.
Milliman described her experiences with the program. She said the first day is usually like herding cats, as the students are all over the place.
“By the end of the 17 days, I found it was the most rewarding job there was,” Milliman said. “I taught kindergarten for 33 years and I love to teach that three weeks of summer school just as much as a year of kindergarten just to see the growth in those children.”
Milliman said it’s not that the children can’t or don’t want to learn, it’s they haven’t had the opportunity to. United Way gave those students an opportunity to go to school and get a little bit of start.
Another initiative that was talked about was the Fill It Up initiative. It is an initiative that came out of COVID, Eckel said. The initiative helps volunteers give back to children who have a “true need in an active way.”
Fill It Up does this through things like its Good Night Boxes. The boxes are filled with items like a blanket, teddy bear, tooth brush, tooth paste and books, Eckel said. It is supposed to help give the children something that belongs to them.
The boxes are given to children that arrive at the shelter in the area, Eckel said.
People can take a box and fill it up with items and give it back to United Ways, Eckel said.
Another initiative that was talked about was Camp Hope.
Laura Robertson, Warsaw Community Church, said WCC will be able to partner with United Way and Ryan’s Place in July to help put on Camp Hope. She said the reality “so many of our kids” are facing is the death of a loved one. The point of the camp is to meet the child where they’re at and help them along, Robertson said.
Aileac Deegan, Ryan’s Place, said Camp Hope is a weeklong day camp starting July 19. They are hoping to help 100 children during the camp.
Deegan said approximately one in 12 children “are bereaved of a parent or a sibling by the age of 18.” This past year has “been extremely stressful for a lot of children for many, many ways.” Ryan’s Place has been in operation for 20 years, so they know how to help children, Deegan said.
People haven’t been able to see people in nursing homes, hospice, the hospital or possibly go to funerals because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Deegan said. Due to that, dealing with death has been hard with children.
An event discussed was the 2021 Big Give.
Lori Shipman, United Way Board member and of Lori Shipman Consulting, said the purpose now is to help students get all the supplies they need to help them be ready to learn.
Last year, 1,100 backpacks were filled for area students, Shipman said. Since the Big Give has expanded its service territory, this year, the event plans to serve 20 schools and wants to get 100 backpacks filled for each school, totaling 2,000 backpacks. Shipman said the Big Give already had 1,300 backpacks committed and needs 700 more to be filled.
For more information, go to https://www.unitedwaykosciusko.org.
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