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School Spotlight: Walnut Street School
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Walnut Street School is not only home to the Everybody Wins! Iowa office, but it is also one of our schools with the largest Power Lunch programs. Walnut Street School serves Kindergarten through 5th grade students, and this year we mentor 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders. The weekly Power Lunch program takes place in the Metro Kids Daycare room on the third floor of the school on Monday (5th grade), Tuesday (4th grade), and Wednesday (3rd grade). Currently, we have 63 mentoring matches at the Walnut Street School!
Everybody Wins! Iowa has had great support from both the teachers and administration at the Walnut Street School. The principal at Walnut Street School is Craig Leager who is a huge supporter of our program. Craig stated, "Everybody Wins! Iowa is a very solid program which we have been fortunate to have our students participate in the past several years. Our students get to focus on literacy while fostering great relationships with their mentors."
Every week it is exciting to have so many students and mentors reading at Walnut Street, but it takes lots of coordination to effectively run the program. Each of our programs has a School Coordinator who is at the program each week. Rose is the school coordinator for Walnut Street School, and she recently spoke about her experience, "My favorite part of being a school coordinator is seeing how excited the kids get when I go down to pick them up. They have a great bond and friendship with their mentors, and I know they really look forward to seeing them each week."
One of our readers at Walnut Street is Tabitha who is a new reader to our program this year. Tabitha reflected on her experience and said, "The thing I like best about reading is that the small amount of time each week makes an big impact on the students' life and mine. They are so engaged in the program and watching the students' excitement and attentiveness during the story is wonderful. It truly opens up another portal for their imagination. I often come back to work and share some funny tidbit about the lunch hour read time."
Lili and Tabitha reading at Walnut Street School
Please click here to sign up today to become a reading mentor at Walnut Street School or one of our other 16 schools in Des Moines and Indianola!
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One of the big projects in December was to get books ready to giveaway to all of the students who participate in our programming. Each year at Christmas and several times throughout the school year, we give new books to the students. We feel that it is important to get books into the homes of students. Most of the students we serve have few books in their homes, so we aim to give as many books away as we can. This year we had enough books to give at least 2 new books to each student. We ended up giving over 900 new books to children in our programs this Christmas.
The best part of this book giveaway was being able to attend the giveaways at different schools. We gave all of the mentors note cards so that they could write a little note to their student and allowed them to the give the books away. It was a lot of fun to watch the students unwrap each book and get excited about being able to have them as their own.We love being able to provide students with new books!
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Barnes & Noble Book Fair Recap
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Our annual Barnes & Noble Book Fair was a success! This year we raised $6,415.25 and had 298 books donated to us at the store that day. For Barnes & Noble, we had a record breaking book fair for the stores in their district! A big thanks to Barnes & Noble on University Avenue in West Des Moines for inviting us to have a book fair at the store in December.
We want to thank the 50 volunteers who spent time handing out vouchers, wrapping books, and talking to customers about Everybody Wins! Iowa. We also want to thank all of our great programming from the day: Dan Wardell from IPTV, the Blank Park Zoo, Susan Fowler, and the Iowa Barnstormers. Thanks again to everyone who played a role in making the day a success.
"Rumble in the Jungle" story time with Dan Wardell
Reading mentor, Marcia Brown, was one of our elves who handed out candy and vouchers throughout the day! |
It is time to mark your calendars for our annual Read to Lead Gala to be held on Saturday, April 13th, 2013 from 7-10 p.m. at Salisbury House. The gala is a chance for you enjoy beverages and appetizers at the beautiful Salisbury House venue, to meet local authors, have access to the Salisbury House Library, enjoy music from local musicians, and mingle with other supporters of Everybody Wins! Iowa. |
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Recent Grants and School Sponsorships received by
Everybody Wins! Iowa
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Everybody Wins! Iowa received a $5,000 grant from John Deere Financial to sponsor Findley Elementary, which is a new school that was added to our program this fall. Since John Deere Financial already had a relationship with Findley Elementary, they requested to start a new Power Breakfast program at the school. The new program got started at the end of November and has 22 mentors and 13 students taking part in Power Breakfast every Wednesday morning. We are very excited about this new partnership and the ability to expand our programming to be able to serve more students in the Des Moines area.
Everybody Wins! Iowa received a $5,000 grant from Pioneer Hi-Bred International which will be used to sponsor our program at Edmunds Elementary. Edmunds Elementary has a Power Lunch program that meets every Thursday and serves 3rd and 4th graders. We are thrilled to not only have another school sponsor, but to also have support from a great organization in the community.
Everybody Wins! Iowa also received $2,500 from Apollo Group. This funding will be used to help cover general program costs. We appreciate the continued support from the University of Phoenix and Apollo Group.
Everybody Wins! Iowa received a $2,000 grant from the Aviva Foundation which will be used to support our programming at our 14 Des Moines schools. We are grateful for the continued support we receive from the Aviva Foundation.
Everybody Wins! Iowa received a $1,000 grant from Theisen's which will be used to help fund programming at our four new schools in Indianola. Theisen's awarded More For Your Community Grants, with a focus on education, to nonprofits in communities where there are Theisen's stores.
We thank all of these organizations for their generous support and partnership to help us increase children's success in school through reading and mentoring experiences with caring volunteers!
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Everybody Wins! Iowa is currently looking for an intern or volunteer who could help do website updates. Our website is written in basic html language and all work could be done remotely. If you are interested in volunteering, please email statedirector@everybodywinsiowa.org for more information.
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