Winter 2001
Volume 3, Number 2
  


Penn State Lehigh Valley
sponsors youth program

By Judy Lichtman

Since 1990, Penn State Lehigh Valley’s Youth Enrichment Partnership (YEP) Program has developed literacy and technology skills in children from disadvantaged areas through educational enrichment activities. The 2000 YEP Summer Programs brought together area elementary school students and teachers who are Fellows in the Lehigh Valley Writing Institute, sponsored by Penn State Lehigh Valley.

For the teachers, the program offered an opportunity to put into practice the philosophies and creative ideas they were exploring in institute workshops. The students benefited from the program by receiving intensive instruction in writing, a key focus of each of the summer and academic year Youth Enrichment Partnership Programs.

For the past five years, visiting scholars from the faculties of Puerto Rican universities have served as teachers in the Mosser School Summer Program. Because many students enrolled in this program are from families who have recently relocated from Puerto Rico, the visiting scholars serve both as role models for the students and as links between the students' parents and the program.

This year’s summer school was held at the Mosser Village Family Center in Allentown, Pa. The students met for two weeks in the computer lab at the family center with visiting scholar Dr. Mercedes García Peréz, associate professor of business communication at the University of Puerto Rico. The 12 fifth-graders composed several common types of business letters. The 10-year-olds wrote more than 70 business letters, including letters of inquiry to favorite sports figures, musicians and actors and letters requesting “freebies.” The students composed all of their business letters on laptop computers. Most of the children had not used word processing software before, so García Peréz and her assistants taught the students basic computing and word processing skills. Computer skills that are not used are often forgotten, so having the computers available to the students throughout the year at the community center is an important new aspect of the program.

In class, the students also explored concepts related to entrepreneurship and personal finances. In addition, García Peréz discussed social responsibility. During a field trip to Penn State Lehigh Valley, the class learned about child labor at UNICEF's Internet site and watched a film by Heifer Project International profiling three children from Third World countries. The students also visited the Internet site “Free the Children.”

After their field trip, the students decided to hold a bake sale featuring García Peréz' “secret recipe” flan to earn money to help children and their families through Heifer Project International. They baked flan at the family center to fill orders from staff and faculty from Penn State Lehigh Valley and raised $60 to help families in Peru and Guatemala.

Other field trips included a tour of C.F. Martin Guitar and Co. in Nazareth, Pa., and a visit to Musikfest, where the children heard music from Africa and Peru and made crafts at the Discovery Center of Science and Technology.

Two Penn State Lehigh Valley students, Jorge Echegaray and Ferrolisha “Annie” Griffith, worked with the students during the program, and a former Mosser School Summer Program participant, Michelle Flood, a ninth grader, was a summer school volunteer.

Parents’ Day was held on the final day of the program. Parents and siblings of the students attended a closing ceremony and talked with García Peréz and the Penn State staff.

Air Products Donley Foundation and the City of Allentown Housing Authority provided grants to fund Penn State Lehigh Valley's Youth Enrichment Partnership Program at the Mosser Village Family Center. The program also received a 21st Century Community Learning Centers federal grant.
In the photo at left, visiting scholar Dr. Mercedes García Peréz (seated, second from left), associate professor of business communication at the University of Puerto Rico, is with some of the young people she taught during Penn State Lehigh Valley's 2000 Youth Enrichment Partnership Summer Programs. In the photo at right, Penn State senior Jorge Echegaray (standing, second from left), assisted García Peréz during the program.
  

U.Ed.OCE 01-8002/mkm/GSM