DATE: Friday, May 2, 1997                   TAG: 9705010688

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Education 

SOURCE: BY ELIZABETH SIMPSON, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE                        LENGTH:   43 lines

DOWNSIZED WORKERS DON'T LET KIDS DOWN

You couldn't have blamed them if they had decided to slough off their volunteer project, seeing as it was the last week of work for some of the AT&T operators.

But members of the AT&T Pioneers, a volunteer service group made up of American Telephone & Telegraph employees, didn't want to disappoint the children in the Head Start program.

Seven Pioneer volunteers showed up with enthusiasm on April 16 to read to 3- to 5-year-olds at the Carver Head Start Center and to give each of the 14 preschoolers a new book of their own.

This even though some of the volunteers were working their last days with AT&T's operator service center in Norfolk, which was closed April 19 in a downsizing effort.

Connie Anderson, who has worked enough years with AT&T to retire, said she plans to keep up the volunteer work with Head Start even in retirement.

``It's a good feeling to work with the kids, all the way around,'' said Anderson. ``I get emotional when I talk about them.''

The connection between child and volunteer was evident as another AT&T Pioneer, Karen Maxwell, read a book about sounds to 3-year-old Shonterra Morning, 4-year-old Janeese Worsley and 3-year-old Ahmed Pritchett.

``What kind of noise does a train make?'' she asks.

``Choo-choooooo,'' Janeese sang out.

Pioneer members have gone to about 50 classrooms of Head Start, a federally funded preschool program for low-income children, each of the past three years. The volunteers read to the children, collect Christmas gifts and clothes for them, and give them books that they can take home with them.

Michelle Jenkins, who was one of the AT&T volunteers who was losing her job as a long-distance operator last week, said the volunteer work gave a lift to an otherwise gloomy week:

``I try to take advantage of every opportunity I can to work with kids.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo by Lawrence Jackson/The Virginian-Pilot

Karen Maxwell, a volunteer and AT&T Pioneer, reads to children at

Chesapeake's Carver Head Start Center.

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