Valley Gets Final $1,500 Installment For Hispanic Youth Mentoring Program
Posted
David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
AKRON - A Kosciusko Leadership Academy White Paper Project from several years ago will benefit Tippecanoe Valley School Corp. for one more school year.
Thursday afternoon, Jean Orcutt, Indiana Lakeland Girl Scout Council, presented Akron Elementary School with a third and final installment of $1,500 to benefit Valley's Hispanic Youth Mentoring program.Orcutt said she attended KLA several years ago. As a part of KLA, she worked on a White Paper Project with three other people on Hispanic youth mentoring. The group's project was awarded a grant of $5,000.
The mentoring project was designed to pair up high school and/or college students, who, ideally, were Hispanic or bilingual, with younger students, Orcutt said. The older students would mentor and tutor the younger students, helping them with the English language. The older students, Orcutt said, also would serve as good role models and get the younger students to take studying seriously.
The TVHS students are volunteers, and provide their own transportation. While the elementary students get the help they may need, the high school students get real-life use of the Spanish they are learning in the classroom, and they can put it on their college resume.
Susan Walker, an Akron fifth-grade teacher and the Akron coordinator for the Hispanic Youth Mentoring program, said the $1,500 will go toward the salaries for the two adults involved in the program at Mentone and Akron elementary schools.
Last school year, Walker said she had 15 high school students at various times volunteer for the mentoring program at Akron. More than 20 Akron students participated. Her husband, Kris Walker, the Spanish teacher at TVHS, lines up the high school students to volunteer with the program. Susan Walker said the high school students volunteering include a good mix of students, and the elementary students look up to them.
The high school mentors must have at least one year of Spanish to participate. When the program started, only third- or fourth-year Spanish students could participate.
The program met until 4:30 p.m. Wednesdays.
Cynthia Gomez will be a senior at TVHS this fall. She also will be a part of the Hispanic Mentoring Program for a third year this fall.
"I guess I like doing it," she said. "I like hanging out with the little kids. It's fun, and I like to help them."
