Resource center big help at Silver Star Elementary

Green was charged with opening the resource center at Silver Star, Evergreen Public Schools’ first such center, building relationships between the school and community partners to help students and their families. About 59 percent of the students at Silver Star Elementary qualify for free or reduced-price lunch.

In February 2013, the resource center opened in a portable building. Now it is next to the front office to encourage families to drop by.

The resource center model was so successful that last month the Evergreen district opened centers at Burton, Crestline, Marrion and Orchards elementary schools and put Green in charge of supervising coordinators at each of the five centers. She works with the coordinators as they provide information about housing, clothing, food banks, employment, health care and much more.

“Providing for families in intense crisis has made a tremendous impact,” Green said.

Green immediately reached out to neighborhood churches. Volunteers from CrossPointe Church were joined by others from Vancouver Church of Christ and Cascades Presbyterian Church.

Other community partners climbed aboard to help. Washington State University Extension offers an after-school cooking class to teach students and their families how to make healthful, inexpensive meals.

The number of families participating in Share’s backpack food program tripled from the first year to the second as more families became aware of it, Green said. On-site counseling services for students also tripled. Those services are provided by therapists from Children’s Center, Family Solutions and Stepping Stones. Having the appointments at the school “breaks down that barrier of families getting to these appointments,” Green said.

In the 2013-14 school year, 45 Silver Star families received Share backpack food bags, and 12 students were matched with lunch buddy mentors. So many families attended the school’s two open house events that they were standing room only.

The center offers a lending library for parents to check out family movies, games and parenting books. They worked with Share to open a fresh food pantry where families can pick up fresh fruits and vegetables every other Friday. Grant money allowed the resource center to build raised beds and plant a school garden tended by families throughout the summer. This month, the Silver Star community will gather for a garden feast.

Some CrossPointe Church members have volunteered to be lunch buddies. Every August, the church fills a van with supplies for Silver Star students. They also collected family movies and games for the resource center.

“”There’s a lot of ways the school has welcomed us and invited our help,” said Fitzpatrick from CrossPointe Church. “When the school calls on us, we do what we can. I’d love to see other churches and schools embrace the kind of partnership we have with Silver Star. There’s a lot of things we can accomplish if we work together.”

The school’s lunch buddies program is one way community members can make a difference in a student’s life by volunteering for 45 minutes a week to eat lunch with the student, play board games and talk. Husband and wife Doug and Leona Lack are dedicated lunch buddies. They live in the neighborhood and attend CrossPointe Church.

This is the third year Leona Lack has been meeting with her lunch buddy, 11-year-old Kaidence Enright-Cooper, every week. After they ate lunch recently, they played a board game, Mancala. Kaidence’s quick fingers moved the smooth stones around the board while Leona Lack watched, grinning.

“She’s got those quick little fingers,” Leona Lack said. “This is the game you really beat the snot out of me. Sometimes we draw and write each other notes. And just get silly.”

Kaidence grinned, too.

At least 15 Silver Star students are awaiting lunch buddy volunteers. But the need is far greater than needing a buddy at lunch time, according to Michelle Tribe, the resource center’s new site coordinator.

“People don’t know kids come to school in slippers because they don’t have shoes,” Tribe said.