With all the talk about the opening of Community Central in New Britain, The Recorder asked CCSU graduate and former Student Government President Andrew Froning to answer some questions about the project.
– Why is Community Central important to high school students and families?
In a time of very limited resources there are a lot of families that are working very hard to stay afloat in this economy and sacrifices are made. Some of those sacrifices are longer hours at work and not being at home with the kids, or not paying for after-school programs for their kids. Which means no one is there to help the kids with homework or teach them something new. So the student’s learning ends when the bell rings, but that should not be the case. Community Central will be here to receive those kids who want to continue learning after the bell. We will have tutors available to help with homework. There will also be programming going on that, if it peaks the interest of the students, they will attend and learn something new. All of this at NO COST to the families. But we also don’t want to take the kids away from their families either so we encourage parents to volunteer or attend a program with their kids. In the near future we hope to start offering some programming that may be of interest to both the kids and their parents. So in brief wording, I would say Community Central is important to kids/families because it provides a resource that can help lighten the heavy burden that comes along with having a family or being a student in these hard times.
– What needs to be done to make and keep Community Central a success?
There absolutely needs to be support from the students from both CCSU and New Britain High school. We are supplying the bricks and mortar, the students then have to build the Community Central they would like to see. We need volunteers to help tutor, mentor, establish programs and even manage the center. The other part of the equation to make sure this is a success is funding. Running a community center does cost money, but we can’t get money unless we show Community Central works. And in order to show Community Central works, we need students volunteering and utilizing the center. So the simple answer is we need the students to make and keep Community Central a success. But also don’t get the misconception that the students have to do this all by themselves. There will be administrators, staff, community members all willing to help the students and give advice.
– What types of tutoring and other academic work will be done at the venue on Main St.
We will start off very simply with basic homework assistance for high school students and even some proofreading of essays. Once again this is where the students make what they want out of it. College students could host a program on simple math tricks to help you get through those rough math classes, or they could do a program on using MLA format on essays. High school students could even suggest programs and college students could help host them. Informal SAT prep courses could develop if that is something the students want. But I can’t stress enough that this all has to come from the students. Community Central is not something that is going to be run by administration; they have too many other things on their plates. Students are the driving force of Community Central.
– In addition to preparing students to study at an undergraduate level, there has been news of a campaign to end homelessness in the New Britain community in relation to the Mayor’s Workplan. How is Community Central involved?
At this point Community Central is not involved. I am aware of the campaign by Mayor Stewart and hope students at CCSU are as well. I know I sound like a broken record, but if the students want to get Community Central involved in this campaign, we will get Community Central involved. We will help point the students to who they should talk with and how to go about working with a city campaign.
– How can interested CCSU students get more involved?
Very simply send an email to [email protected] and tell us how you see yourself getting involved or if you just want to volunteer we will work with you to find something of your interest that you can help with.