The Link focusing on educational opportunities

Published 4:45 am Saturday, November 21, 2020

The Link of Cullman County’s annual giving campaign continues this week focusing on the educational opportunities available to both children and adults in the community. 

The Link began the campaign with a quote by Fred Rogers, who asked “Won’t you be my neighbor?” and has based each week of the campaign on different questions centered around that quote. 

The question for this week is “Jesus said what?” and The Link is using scripture about loving your neighbor as yourself to encourage others to do so. 

Loving one’s neighbor is not always the easiest thing to do, especially when that neighbor is angry or hurt or coming from a broken place, said Director of Neighbor Relations Julie Hall. 

For those who may be struggling with that, she cited a Bible verse from 1 Corinthians 13:4 “Love is patient, love is kind,” and said people who may be struggling to be patient or kind should pray for the ability to love more.

“That’s where we miss it, we run around saying ‘Please help me be more patient’ or ‘Please help me be more attentive,’” she said. “But if we just say ‘Lord, help me love more,’ then we can love our neighbor as ourself.” 

This week also comes with a focus on some of the organization’s relationships with schools and how investing early in students can help put them on the right track for the rest of their lives, said Director of Community Development Melissa Betts. 

“If you can reach children when they’re young, to know that they have secure relationships and people who love them, it typically helps them walk a better path,” she said. 

The Link offers programs for students that offer them a chance for mentorship as well as improving their academic performance, said Literacy Coordinator Reginnia Roat.

VIPS, or Volunteers in Public Schools, allows adults in the community to act as a mentor to at-risk children in public elementary schools around the county for one hour every week, she said. 

“Those folks go out to the schools and they spend some time being an encourager and a cheerleader for that child and getting to know them,” she said. 

Roat said VIPS mentors usually end up helping out academically as a tutor when their student needs some extra help, but their primary goal is to build a relationship and be someone that student can depend on.

VIPS mentors only work with the children inside the school, and each child for the program is chosen by a school counselor who works to match students with mentors who can help them out, she said. 

Many of the mentors also end up picking up an extra student if they have the time, or may commit to spending more time with their student in school, such as attending class parties or stopping by to eat lunch with them, Roat said. 

“They’re just investing in those kiddos and trying to help them be successful in school and hopefully learn some of the skills and things that they’ll need to be successful in life,” she said.

An additional education opportunity that has spun out of the VIPS program is the kindergarten readiness camps that The Link hosts before each school year, Roat said. 

Kindergarten teachers had begun expressing concern that children were entering kindergarten without some knowledge of their letters and numbers or have basic skills like knowing how to hold a pencil or use scissors, she said. 

“They’re coming in so far behind the rest of the class that it’s holding the whole class back and it’s taking weeks to just get to a starting point,” she said. 

Roat said the readiness camp was first introduced in the Fairview community five years ago, and has since grown into camps that are offered in the four corners of the county and in the city.  

Along with the VIPS program and kindergarten readiness camp, there are also after-school tutors available at The Link for any student in elementary, middle or high school who needs some academic help, Roat said. 

With the COVID-19 pandemic causing schools to close early in the spring, students missed out on some of the things they needed for the next school year, and now that they are learning virtually for some of the week or all the time, there are more students who are falling behind where they need to be, she said. 

“They basically lost half a year when you put all that together,” she said. “So we’re really seeing an increase in requests for getting more after-school tutors.”

The biggest need right now is for middle school and high school math subjects like pre-algebra, algebra and algebra II with trigonometry, but there are also tutors needed for elementary students who have fallen behind in their reading or math subjects, Roat said. 

Betts said educational opportunities from The Link are not limited to children, with adult classes available through the Renew U program that are designed to help adults develop into someone who is better equipped to cope with some of life’s challenges.

“We teach things like like anger management, positive parenting, boundaries, recovery to help you walk a new journey, make better choices and develop new habits so you don’t rely on your old habits.”

Betts said The Link recently received a $25,000 grant from the Children’s Trust Fund, which is being used to pay for additional positive parenting courses for those who need some help balancing their life and children. 

“We think the more you know, the better choices you can make,” she said.

More information about VIPS and other educational opportunities, along with a form to sign up to volunteer, can be found at linkingcullman.org.