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St. Paul's, Montrose announces Adventure Club after-school program

[From Paul Walker and Randy Webster]

Historic St. Paul’s Church is offering The Adventure Club, a free after-school program.  The program runs from 3:15 to 5:00 P.M. every Wednesday, beginning October 5.  All students in Kindergarten through the 8th grade are welcome to participate.
Each month will have a unique theme for the program. The monthly themes are:

• October— “All things bright and beautiful”
• November— Sharing and Caring
• December— Christmas Crafts
• January— Movement
• February— The Diversity of God’s Family
• March—Making a difference in the world around us
• April— The Fine Arts
• May— Cooking

The year will finish with a big celebration!
Snacks and homework assistance will be provided.

This year the students will have the opportunity to participate in a youth choir which will make public appearances about every six weeks, sometimes singing at the morning service at St. Paul’s, and sometimes singing at various public events.  The choirs will rehearse from 4:00 to 5:00 P.M.

If there is enough interest we will also offer the ability to participate in a handbell choir.
If you wish to register, please call the office at St. Paul’s at 570-278- 2954.

Good Shepherd Child Care Center is a Rising Star

[From Bill McGinty]

The Good Shepherd Child Care Center in Milford just received news that it has been awarded STAR 3 Status from the Pennsylvania State Star Program. This means so much to the center in terms of grants. Angela Smith and her team, worked for months with parishioners to fill all the State requirements. The Good Shepherd Child Care Center is in its 25th year and cares for poor and single-parent families. As a part of Good Shepherd and St. John's Shared Ministry Outreach Program, the center cares for some 72 children each day. Suzanne Geisler is the center's vestry co-ordinator. From almost closing in July of 2005, this is a monumental achievement for the center and the vestry's restoration program.

500 homeless students in the Allentown School District?

Monica called my attention to a Letter to the Editor in Wednesday's Morning Call wherein the writer pleaded for help for the victims of the recent fire in Allentown. 

What especially hooked me was the following paragraph: "A roll of quarters given to Russell 'Rooster' Valentini, homeless coordinator for the Allentown School District, will allow a small family to take the clothes from a burned apartment to the coin laundry to be washed clean. If your children are in school in Allentown, have them bring in a roll or two of quarters to their principal for "Rooster" to use. He already has 500 homeless students on his caseload. Now he has more."

The online version of the letter includes only the first sentence of that paragraph Although I point that out, my question is not s much about the reason for the online omission but it is about 500 homeless students in the Allentown School District. Can that be?

A little Googling resulted in these possible confirmations: (1) From a 2006 Moravian College news release: In any given year, Rooster has to manage approximately 500 cases with active files normally approaching 75 cases. (2) From a June 2007 Commission Report on Allentown's Plan to End Chronic Homelessness by 2017: From 2001 through 2006, the Allentown School District documented in excess of 600 homeless students annually.

Now, if that is so, where do they stay ... and what opportunity for creative and compassionate ministry might it suggest?

Bill

Grace Montessori School

Established in 1992 with seven children of food pantry clients as an outreach of Grace Episcopal Church, Allentown, Grace Montessori School is a not-for-profit, urban school and childcare center, licensed by the Department of Public Welfare and registered as a private, non-public school with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

In keeping with its historic roots as a social ministry of the church to help provide quality early childhood education for the children of poor families in downtown Allentown, Grace Montessori School continues to provide scholarship assistance, based solely upon financial need, to approximately 30 percent of its student body. This commitment allows children of families who cannot afford to provide a private school education the means to do so and helps broaden the diversity of the student body to include more socio-economic, racial, ethnic, religious and cultural diversity than most Montessori programs which, while typically culturally and religiously diverse, are predominantly middle and upper middle class economically.

The school’s new state-of-the-art facility in what had been the administrative offices of Hess’s Department Store on the ground level of the store’s parking garage was dedicated in December of 2004. In partnership with the Allentown Parking Authority, the church had secured state and local funding to construct this purpose-built school for its early childhood program. Continued growth and the addition, in 2006, of an early elementary program, required additional expansion.

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Download the Oct. 2008 newsletter of Grace Montessori School

Download GraceMontessori.Oct2008a.pdf

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