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Promise Community projects see progress By BILL LOCKWOOD Special to the Eagle Times Promise Community projects see progress Children’s books and materials have been temporarily set up outside the Ro Ratti Children’s Room, being renovated in the Springfield Town Library as part of the Promise Community grant funding. BILL LOCKWOOD Promise Community projects see progress Some of the murals painted by Stuart Eldridge in 1957 for the Children’s Ward at Springfield Hospital were moved to the library in 2007. These murals, at left, will be retained for the newly renovated Ro Ratti Children’s Room. BILL LOCKWOOD SPRINGFIELD, Vt. — The Promise Community Grant is from the early childhood initiatives of the Obama administration. Federal funding for these grants are administered by the individual states and applieåd for by local groups. Two years ago, in response to a state invitation to apply, 35 people gathered in a meeting room at the Springfield Police Station and put together a steering committee to apply for a $150,000 grant to meet the goal of promising to help realize the potential of every child, birth through six, and their families in Springfield. After a long process of community involvement and a Vermont State Agency of Human Services grant process, results of this initiative are now becoming real. Michelle Stinson, a children’s librarian in Springfield, described the community part of the process. The steering committee represented all aspects of providers to the age 0-6 population. They met frequently, and some attended a two-day state training at Killington. The committee tried to answer the questions; “What would make life better here? What would be better for your kids?” Community response was gathered as the providers interacted with the children and their families as well as other outreach efforts, such as a booth at the festival during The Week of the Child at Riverside Middle School. Stinson says many “sticky notes” were gathered and compiled with the answers that were used to write the grant application. “We looked at how we could wrap around every part,” Stinson said. Several providers were selected to provide projects with the funding. The Springfield Library was the largest recipient of the funding. Springfield Library Director Amy Howlett said the library “has a history of always being here, will continue to be here, and to support whatever we create for a promise community.” Stinson says that the library provides a “safe spot and central location where things could be provided.” She also says when “safe spots” were discussed in Springfield. “the library kept coming up.” Major funding will go to refurbishing their Ro Ratti Children’s Room, named after a long serving former children’s librarian, with rolling shelves and seating that will give it great flexibility for all kinds of programs. There will be a family room created to be booked for private meetings between families and visiting providers of various services. Other programs and organizations also received funding for programs under the grant. The Edgar May Health and Recreation Center will be doing Baby and Me Yoga for mothers and mothers to be, Family Yoga, and Family Swimming. The Children’s Dental Program of Springfield Medical Systems will be providing services and parent education. The Childbirthing Center at Springfield Hospital will have a Baby and Me Playgroup. Springfield Arts Gym will have classes and take home kits for children and families. ACES in Action will embark on a window sticker campaign of “stick up for kids” and present a movie series promoting resilience and reduction of trauma and toxic stress. The grant will carry the programs through December of 2019. All the programs together are pieces of a coordinated whole. The committee needed an overseeing organization to bring everything together. The South Eastern Vermont Community Action (SEVCA) community organization stepped forward to take on that role as the fiscal agent for the grant and coordinating organization for the grant programs. Steve Geller, Executive Director, said, “Our role is to make the process transparent and work for the people actually providing the needed services to the community.” He said there have been delays in setting up a very complicated system of making all the rules of granting, funding, and reimbursement match the various recipients, some of which are part of other financial structures and some who are not. But SEVCA has put it altogether, and Geller said, “After starting out as a stampede of turtles, we are getting really going.” There are definite signs in the Springfield Library that things are happening. Construction is completed on the new Family Room, and it is awaiting its new furniture and toys with décor evocative of nature. Howlett says that the Family Room and refurbished Children’s Room will both be painted with the goal of “bringing nature inside.” All the shelved books and resource materials have been moved out of the Children’s Room, and it is awaiting its new furniture and refurbished walls. The library has also expanded its program of free passes to Vermont State Parks to include the Montshire Children’s Museum, Wonderfeet, and places outside Vermont such as the Dr, Seuss Museum in Springfield, Massachusetts, and the Eric Curl Museum in Amherst, Massachusetts. Howlett says that one thing that came out of the early information gathering was the desire of locals for children to have experiences that “take them out of town.” Two other programs are still to be started. One is a “boot camp for dads” and 1,000 Books Before K, which involves parents reading to their children every night from books that could come free to them from the library. Howlett also says that what they found from the community is that the population wanted a place that is “safe, comfortable, and welcoming,” and it turned out that for many, that was the library. She says it has a reputation as being “open to all and free standing to all.” That, too, is the philosophy of all the programs that have been created by this grant.
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