By Jonathan Stankiewicz
Alumni from CCSU are looking for undergraduates and other former students to help mentor children at New Britain elementary schools.
The alumni represent CCSU’s Community Central, a student-oriented space aimed at strengthening ties between the University and the New Britain community.
Community Central opened its doors last year to help expand CCSU’s presence in the Hardware City’s downtown area. The mentoring program, which is run in part by CCSU alumni Krista Kingsbury, currently has only two elementary schools involved in the program, Vance Village Elementary School and Jefferson Elementary School.
One day Kingsbury hopes to have all of New Britain’s schools involved in Community Central.
“You can bring an idea there, but you have to do the leg work,” said Kingsbury. “Community Central provides students with the tools they need to do what they want to do, but it’s not handed to you.”
With the motto: “Student Run, Student Done,” students and alumni can try something new while making connections with young kids. Kingsbury said that even as little as a two and half hour time commitment can be the perfect platform for making these connections.
Last year, Community Central ran a pilot program with both schools and ended up having 17 CCSU students see it all the way through. This year Kingsbury is hoping to get at least 60 volunteers after a federal grant through AmeriCorps.
“We work with the behavioral specialists at the schools,” said Kingsbury. “We [also] work with kids that need that extra attention that the teacher can’t provide, and that they know that they aren’t getting at home.”
“We definitely need more males in the program,” Kingsbury said.
Kingsbury said that male parental figures are often absent from the lives of inner city children, and there is an even smaller presence of male teachers working in the city’s schools. She said it’s all about building a relationship with the kids.
“These kids are like little grown-ups in little bodies, but it’s fun and they start off shy, but by the second or third meeting you’ll see who is outgoing and excited to be there,” Kingsbury said. “We definitely know it’s impacting them in the short term and I am excited for the long term.”
Social work professor Dr. Delia González-Sanders worked with Kingsbury last semester in two of her classes and couldn’t have been happier. Her students were already required to do 70 hours of volunteer work in other areas, but added the mentoring into their schedules.
“The feedback I got…they found it very fulfilling and enriching,” González-Sanders said. “It helped them in their academic knowledge and helped them to reach out to others and the pupils that they worked with.”
They found it very rewarding and wanted to do it again, added González-Sanders.
González-Sanders sees this program as a way to show the mentees what they have to look forward to.
“The more we are able to provide students that help prepare pupils in elementary, middle, and high school the better it will be for students when they come up on campus,” said González-Sanders. “They will have a better view and relationship with the school.”
González-Sanders is planning on trying to make the Community Central mentoring program a staple of the social work program at CCSU as a way for students to fulfill their volunteer requirements.
“This is something that should be encouraged and supported campus-wide,” said González-Sanders.
This semester, sociology professor Fiona Pearson will be using her First Year Experience classes as a good opportunity to connect CCSU with Community Central. Offering the program as an optional final project for the semester, Pearson wants her students to be internally motivated with the substantial time commitment the program requires.
For children at the elementary level to connect with someone from college, even if they had never thought about college previously, can help them begin to embrace college as a goal and get a better sense of what CCSU is in the community, said Pearson.
“This is not just charity work,” Pearson said, “students see themselves as recipients, not just donating their time and knowledge.”
Community Central allows students to be as creative as they can be, whether it be an art student that wanted to create an art therapy course or even designing a business that the kids can help with.
“Criminology students can say that they have ties with the community and it’s a good way for them to learn how these kids have grown up and the way things are,” said Kingsbury. “Students get to meet people that they would never work with otherwise. The experience is great, though challenging, and makes you look like a more well-rounded individual.”
“This town hosts our school,” said Kingsbury. “We need to give back.”
Background checks of volunteers are performed by Kingsbury and the elementary schools. The program kicks off in October, but meetings will start in the next couple of weeks.
For more information, interested students, faculty and alumni can e-mail Kingsbury at [email protected].