SUN PRAIRIE COMMUNITY SCHOOLS
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As we round the corner on the mid-way point of this school year, we are taking stock of what we have been able to accomplish and what we have in front of us. Next week, we will publish the Sun Prairie Community Schools Mid-Year Impact Report. This report will be published on our Facebook page and our website.
The team would also like to recognize Sun Prairie High School student Kazzie Saron for her help in putting together this month’s newsletter. We are grateful for her service and support in telling our stories this month. Kazzie reached out towards the end of 2020 to see how she could help support the work of community schools, to help her community. Using her passion for writing, she has volunteered her time to interview the team and put together the stories for you. Thank you Kazzie!
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Jamie Racine
Community Schools Program Coordinator
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C.H. BIRD UPDATE | From Shenika Moss
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Update
The Hunger No Longer food pantry will be starting on February 12 along with the Clothes With Love clothing closet. The Fly Birds after school program will also be coming to life along with a new logo that has been created for it. Food Pantry starting February 12. Fly birds club after school program.
Hunger No Longer Food Pantry
Shenika has just started working with the C.H. Bird community schools. Her experience has been off to a great start and she has been able to partner with the Our Savior Lutheran Church that is supporting the Hunger No Longer food pantry. Different community leaders have stepped up to help the activities and ideas for C.H. Bird to come to life and to help make connections with the community. The focus this month is to build quality partnerships and connect with the community to build programs that families can easily access for assistance and provide family as well as community engagement!
Volunteers are needed for the Hunger No Longer food pantry on February 12!!!
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NORTHSIDE UPDATE | From Tenisha Winn
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Update
Northside is so excited for their first year as a community school! They have developed a food pantry with the help of Amanda Hinthorn named Nellie’s Nest to remind families in the community that this is a place of love and strong support where they can grow. Not only does it provide food for families, but Northside is hoping to provide them with board games and other activities to encourage family engagement! Northside is developing its own community room and working with the principal, Lexi Vanden Heuvel, to create a positive and bright space with a kids’ corner! They are also hoping for a refrigerator and freezer to provide families with milk, cheese, bread, meat as well as other perishable items, along with other necessities!
Northside has also partnered with the United Methodist Church to donate winter attire such as hats, boots, gloves, snow pants, and coats for the kids to keep! In the Spring, Northside hopes to expand Nellie's Garden which was started by Theresa Stevens. They hope to create a community garden where families can utilize the fresh fruit and vegetables and plant them in their own plots! Jung Garden has also offered to teach basic gardening fundamentals for the community garden. We will also see volunteers from United Methodist Church working in the garden to keep it a beautiful place for families to utilize!
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Holiday Season
Towards the end of November, Northside Elementary has partnered with Cardinal Heights, the Black Educators Coalition, American Family, Patrick Marsh, and the Black Student Union to give families within the community a warm meal for the Thanksgiving holiday. Over the holiday break, those same families received a $100 gift card and a prayer shawl that was donated from the United Methodist Church, which was truly heartwarming. Families were overjoyed and appreciative of the donations they received over the holiday season.
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Northside's Community Room |
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Nellie's Garden
We are so excited to see it bloom in the Spring!
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Donation requests: clothing donations at United Methodist Church, along with prayer shawls to ensure that families know they are loved and supported within this community.
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Donations from United Methodist Church. We thank everyone who donated for this great cause! |
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PATRICK MARSH UPDATE | From Lisa Goldberry
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Update
Patrick Marsh Community School continues to build partnerships with community businesses and organizations. We would like to welcome Joy Matthews to Patrick Marsh’s Site Leadership Team. Joy is Vice President Total Rewards at QBE and also sits on the Board of Boys and Girls Club of Dane County. In addition, we will be partnering with the Urban League of Greater Madison to offer some adult hubs/support groups for our parents/guardians/and other adults supporting our students outside of the classroom. Be on the lookout for those announcements
In addition, we continue to work diligently to transition our clubs into a virtual format. In October we transitioned our Art club, in partnership with Prairie Music and Arts (PMA) into a rotating six week synchronous virtual format. In January, we will transition our Step dance club, in Partnership with Life Church of Dane County, into a synchronous virtual format, as well as, our Drama club, also in partnership with PMA.
- On January 25, Patrick Marsh Community Schools hosted a food drive to help support families in partnership with the Patrick Marsh Student Council.
- Be on the lookout for Black History events in the last week of February!
- Patrick Marsh Community School will also be partnering with the Children's Theater of Madison for race and relationship programs in February.
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Patrick Marsh Community Schools partnered with Patrick Marsh’s Panther Pack (A student volunteer club) to spread some holiday joy by collecting new toy donations. We would like to send a huge thank you to everyone who donated toys. The toys were distributed on Monday, Dec. 21, 2020, in the Rolling Prairie, The Element, and Vandenburg communities during lunch pick up. It was a joy to see the smiling faces. |
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PRAIRIE PHOENIX ACADEMY | From Bobby Finn
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Update
PPA has partnered with the YMCA, Boys and Girls Club of Dane County, and Oddly Arranged Media work with students and staff and to start-up workshops! They are so excited to provide activities where kids and staff can grow together!
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Martin Luther King Outstanding Person Award
Trinity Johnson-Felton, Frantasia West-Carter, and Zoey Conrady from PPA have won the MLK Outstanding Person award sponsored by the Urban League of Greater Madison! This is a huge accomplishment for them and we are excited to see what the future holds for them!
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Not pictured is Zoey Conrady |
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WESTSIDE UPDATE | From Stacy Darga
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Update
- The mobile food pantry continues but is being moved to every other Tuesday and is serving 125 families each time. The pantry is from 4 - 5 pm or until food runs out.
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Fill the Van delivery from Door Creek stocks the school’s food pantry and the donation and delivery happens every third Tuesday of the month.
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Financial Fitness Workshops are free workshops on budgeting, assessing your financial situation, and reducing your debt. These workshops will be held on the next three Thursdays (Jan 21, 28, and February 4) from 4 - 5 pm. These are free workshops, but pre-registration is required. This is a new program collaboration with our partners at Bank of Sun Prairie and the SPASD Employee Wellness program.
- Daily lunches with the YMCA program ended Friday, January 22. We still want to keep the connection with families at The Element so moving forward, Neighborhood Navigator George Chavez and Stacy Darga will continue to be there every Wednesday at noon to check in with families, including bringing along non-perishable food, toiletries, and the ever-popular Mystery Bags!
- Virtual ESL classes with our partners, at The Literacy Network, are being offered to families in the community starting on January 19. This eight week series is free and open to the public, but pre-registration with the Literacy Network is required.
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Read Your Heart Out will be a virtual reading event held on February 12 and will connect volunteer readers with classrooms over Zoom. This is our 7th year celebrating this special day which promotes African American family and parent engagement in our school.
- Mike Lroy, a local mural artist will be painting a beautiful mural in the hallway by the cafeteria. He will be joining us as our artist-in-residence the entire month of February and will be collaborating with our after school programming scholars on the design and painting of the mural!
- We are working on our next Family/Parents needs assessment which will incorporate identifying what families’ needs are and then helping to match them with appropriate resources so those needs are met as well as help shape programming for our community school next school year. Surveys will be sent out to Westside families in the upcoming months to gather this important information.
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We are excited to announce that Westside will again have a Schools of Hope (virtual) program this Winter. Joining us will be our new SOH coordinator, Marcia Witt, who was an amazing tutor last year!
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Door Creek Church
For the past several years, Door Creek Church (DCC) has partnered with Westside to hold a holiday shopping event as part of our December Family Fun event. Families and Door Creek Church volunteers so enjoy this activity that we knew we wanted to continue this somehow this holiday season even during a pandemic. However, we knew we had to think “outside of the box” in how and even where this event would be held since our school buildings were closed to outside events. We met with DCC and came up with a plan and not only did we come up with a plan, but we also welcomed CH Bird and their families to join our event this year!
Our plan was to have the event at a building where families could be socially distanced and still pick out gifts (all donated by DCC members) to help make their family’s holiday special. Our first option was the Westside Community Building. All planning was set for families to enter the building, a few at a time, and shop from tables full of gifts on Wednesday, December 16. But wait, we soon learned, we needed to “pivot” again when the new Dane County Public Health order mandated that all city buildings close. Enter in our amazing partners with the City of Sun Prairie, including our Neighborhood Navigator George Chavez who reached out to Chief Garrison with the SPFD to see if instead of families entering into the building, could they instead drive-thru one of the fire station bays and shop from their vehicles? It took several meetings, but we came up with a plan that turned out to be an amazing success!
On that Wednesday evening, Westside and CH Bird families, who had pre-registered for the event with the help of each building’s social worker and site coordinator, arrived at Bay Number 1 of the Westside Community Building Fire Station to shop from their vehicles with volunteers from DCC and the community from tables laden with donated gifts, clothes and even wrapping paper. Volunteers then loaded the gifts in the families’ vehicles and away they went while our SPPD helped direct traffic so they could safely merge onto Grand Avenue. The event served over 70 families from both schools and the experience was heartwarming and filled with love as families were assured they would have gifts under the tree at Christmas time! Another shout out to the many partners that were part of this event - City of Sun Prairie, SPFD, SPPD and EMS, Neighborhood Navigators, George Chavez, and Barry Mahlum, Door Creek Church, especially Community Development Pastor Mark Deering, and Director, Barbara Johnson, and all their members who donated gifts and the many volunteers who helped unload, transport and sort all the gifts. Did you know we were just two of six schools in Dane County that Door Creek Church partnered with for six holiday shopping events?
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Fill the Van in early January! Our very own SPPD officers were there to help unload all the items that were stocked in our Westside school food pantry. |
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Yep, even in the snow and cold, our Westside Mobile Food Pantry continues! Thanks to all who volunteer to help feed 125 families each time! |
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Volunteers for the Westside Mobile Food Pantry in partnership with the YMCA every other Tuesday. We always need people to help load cars and help with traffic. Please reach out to Stacy Darga to sign up.
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Read Your Heart Out (virtual) volunteers that would pick their favorite book to read to a classroom over zoom on February 12. Reach out to Stacy Darga to sign up!
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Winter attire for kids including small waterproof gloves or mittens for kindergarteners and first graders along with size 1-6 winter boots needed to help keep our Wildcats warm this winter. If you have any items to donate or your group would like to host a donation drive, please reach out to Stacy Darga.
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CONTACT US
Jamie Racine
Program Coordinator
608.834.6534
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Shenika Moss
Site Coordinator
C.H. Bird Elementary
608.834.7320
Tenisha Winn
Site Coordinator
Northside Elementary
608.834.7160
Lisa Goldsberry
Site Coordinator
Patrick Marsh Middle School
608.834.7661
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Bobby Finn
Site Coordinator
Prairie Phoenix Academy
608.834.6920
Stacy Darga
Site Coordinator
Westside Elementary
608.834.7546
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