Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, September 27, 1994 TAG: 9409270093
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
This is the one in which First Union bank employees visit elementary schools in Roanoke to read to second-graders. The students then retell the story by dramatizing it, and are encouraged to come up with a different ending all their own.
Creative, yes, but not a fantasy. Story Telling and Retelling is one of four Roanoke city school-partnership initiatives in which First Union employees are participating this year. The bank is providing 165 employees up to four hours a month of paid time off - and an unlimited number of unpaid hours - to do volunteer work in city schools.
First Union volunteers also will work as Literacy Passport mentors, helping individual students with reading comprehension, writing and math; as mentors in the Praise for Girls career-awareness program, to nurture interest in math and science among seventh-grade girls; and in Project UNITE, a program at targeted schools that offers tutoring in any subject in which a student needs help.
First Union's show of commitment is a welcome addition to the talent, energy and resources that about 90 Roanoke Valley businesses have poured into classrooms as educational partners with the city schools. To cite just a few examples:
General Electric has developed a partnership with Oakland Elementary that has helped students and teachers understand math and science concepts found in novels. G.E. volunteers also have spent one-on-one quality time with Oakland students. And G.E. employees have helped get the school's computer network up and running.
Kroger stores on U.S. 460, at Crossroads and at Tanglewood have helped schools such as Huff Lane Intermediate, Westside, Fishburn Park and Virginia Heights Elementary with donations of food and school supplies as well as employees' time.
Central Fidelity Bank for the past eight years has built up a repertoire of services and activities to benefit city schools. As part of its partnership with Fallon Park Elementary, Central Fidelity opened a minibank to teach students real-life money management and math skills, has purchased books for class libraries, provided mentors, helped with an afterschool enrichment program, and provided volunteers to help students write, illustrate and bind their own books. The bank is also a founding supporter of The Nurturing Program, a communitywide project to enhance participants' parenting skills.
These are just outlines of the involvement of only four businesses among scores that have joined into formal partnerships with the schools. These businesses provided only a portion of the 6,399 volunteers and 116,584 hours donated last school year by businesses, community groups, parents and others. And the school-partnership experience in Roanoke is replicated in school divisions across the region, state and nation.
The reality that some of these partnerships are more effective than others, and that the business community has an obvious stake in the education of the future work force, does not diminish a bit from the credit deserved by such organizations and individuals. They give of themselves to build positive experiences into the lives of a new generation. Good for them.
by CNB