Service Above Self

The Rotary Club of Utica
Columbus School Project

     Columbus School is an inner city elementary school with approximately 700 students in grades K-6. Columbus has an ethnically and socio-economically diverse school population, in part owing to the settlement in our community of substantial numbers of refugee families, many of whom reside in the neighborhoods surrounding the school.  Our Urban Concerns Committee meets every other week, year round, with the school principal, and once or twice a year with the school faculty to workshop the problems and needs of this inner city school, and to develop solutions using the human and financial resources of the club. The district's Superintendent of Schools recently praised our involvement, commenting that this year's scores in State testing clearly demonstrated the positive impact Utica Rotary's programs at Columbus School have had. Columbus' scores showed dramatic increases. Our specific programs have included: 
 

• Rotary Readers: Nearly 50 of our members go to the school weekly or bi-weekly to read to, hold discussions with and mentor students. Every class in the school is established the EarlyAct Club at Columbus School.  This is a Rotary affiliated student "service club" dedicated to the ideal of service to others, comprised of representatives from each class in the school.  It is the second such student organization in the northeastern United States. 
• EarlyAct Club: Utica Rotary oversees the continued operation of this EarlyAct Club, which has already engaged in a multitude of wonderful projects and fundraisers benefiting persons in need in the community.
• Explorer Honor Society: Four years ago, we established an Explorer's Honor Society to provide incentives for academic achievement.  Initially, every Explorer (students receiving all A's or all A's and one B) was invited to the regular Utica Rotary lunch at Twin Ponds to have lunch with the Rotarians. Each received a specially designed T-Shirt identifying them as a member of the Explorer Honor Society.  This program has resulted in ever-increasing numbers on the honor roll--in the first year, the number of honor students grew from 29 to 59 to 79 to 159 students in the four consecutive marking periods.    Due to the increased numbers of honor students under the program, students (usually 50-60) in grades 3 thru 6 are invited to the Rotary luncheon each marking and honor students in K thru 2 are treated to a Crafts and Ice Cream Sundae party at the school organized and supervised by Rotarians.  (The enclosed photos are from several of those crafts parties.)   In October 2000, the Adirondack Railway train was chartered by the club, and 100+ Explorers were treated to a two and a half hour fall foliage train ride thru the Adirondacks with club members. 
• Rising Star Awards: The club honors exceptional non-honor society students with an annual Rising Star Award--T-Shirts designed by the club for that purpose.  The awards are handed out class by class, announced in each classroom, and the recipient invariably receives applause from his or her fellow students.  This addresses the need for providing educational incentives for students who are not likely to make Explorer Honor Society but nonetheless have demonstrated exemplary improvement or achievement.

• Refugee Family Thanksgiving Dinner: The large number of refugee families (40% of the children are from homes where English is the second language) led us to sponsor a Refugee Thanksgiving Dinner, teaching new members of our American Society the traditions of that holiday.  In return, each year, the committee is invited by these refugee families to a special "thank you" dinner of Bosnian, Russian, Vietnamese, and Puerto Rican food, highlighted by dance and song performances by their children.
• Dental Health Day: We sponsor a dental health day, providing classroom talks on dental health and distributing toothbrushes and toothpaste to every child in the school.
• Courtyard Project:  The club is in the process of designing and developing an environmental classroom and amphitheater in what is now a large empty courtyard located in the center of this square school building.  The committee is comprised of members of the Utica Rotary Club and faculty members from the school.  The project, which is expected to cost in excess of $200,000, is hoped to be funded through grants and corporate contributions.
• Pencil and Book Collections and Distribution: The club collected thousands of pencils for use by the students in their classrooms.  In addition, over 1000 books, used or new, were collected and every student was given a book to keep at the end of the school year 2000.
• Reading Corner Carpeting: In 1999, we discovered that several classrooms in a portion of the building had cold linoleum floors, unsuitable for reading corners.  To address that need, one of our members in the floor covering business donated carpeting and installation services, resulting in usable reading corners in these rooms.
• Shared Decision Making Team Involvement: Members of the Rotary Club sit on the Shared Decision Making Team and the school's Technology Committee as community representatives.
• Career Day: Several members of the club participated in this year's Career Day, meeting with students with respect to their vocational areas.

Visit the Columbus School Website