Find out what Outreach to Teach is all about
03/22/2016
The Indiana Student Education Association (ISEA) and ISTA will sponsor Outreach to Teach April 9 from 7:30 a.m. – 4 p.m. at Oakland Elementary School, 611 S. 21st St., Lafayette. The annual event rewards a deserving public school with a makeover. Volunteers from ISEA, ISTA, ISTA-Retired and community members will clean, paint, landscape and decorate the school in one weekend.
We invited ISEA Vice President Mikaela Gerba to guest blog on what ISEA has planned for Outreach to Teach.
Outreach to Teach is an amazing day! We are about to give an “extreme home makeover” to an entire school in six hours. It is breathtaking and extremely rewarding. As educators, helping children is our passion, and Outreach to Teach allows us to help in other ways than inside a classroom. However, a lot goes into the planning and implementation of it. Outreach to Teach has chosen Oakland Elementary based on its high-need for renovating.
Any and all supplies that can be donated are greatly appreciated, and any canned or dry goods, toiletries or paper products that can be collected or donated to their food pantry would be great! School supplies, paint, monetary and in-kind gifts are also appreciated.
Oakland used to be an alternative high school. The hallways are dark, dingy, and drab.
“When I walked into the school building, I did not feel like I was at home like I do when I enter most elementary schools,” said ISEA Outreach to Teach co-chair Adam Miller “The building lacked the inviting feeling that is so necessary for young children. An elementary school should feel warm, safe, and inviting. This school made me feel like a business meeting was going to be conducted instead of shapingthe lives of children.”
There are no bulletin boards for teachers to post student work, nor are there any murals or colorful paintings. The teacher’s lounge consists of “little-kid” tables and chairs, and the outside of the building is depressing without flowers or landscaping. These are only a handful of the countless projects we must complete on April 9!
Since there is so much work to be done, the ISEA Outreach to Teach co-chairs Adam, Kelly Reed and I have a lot of fundraising yet to do. In years past, we have applied for grants from NEA, received generous donations, used a Go-Fund Me page and had ISEA colleges raise money on their own. Outreach to Teach is an enormous event that requires a lot of work and planning, but it is so incredibly worth all of the effort and hard-work. This year donations are quite behind schedule.
Oakland Elementary needs all the help it can get, and these students deserve our help!
“I immediately thought back to my elementary school as I walked the halls of Oakland,” said Miller “Looking at the murals in my school made the school feel alive even when the hallways were empty. It is this feeling that I hope the students at Oakland Elementary find after we help turn their school around. I want these students to feel like they belong, and school is a place they look forward to spending part of their childhood.”
Our goal, as Adam describes, is to make the children feel like they have a home away from home at this school. If you have the opportunity to participate in Outreach to Teach this year, please do. I promise, you will not regret it! Learn more at ista-in.org/o2t.