The Conscience of the Community
That’s the way I described Communities In Schools of North Texas’ role on behalf of students who are at-risk to the men and women of the Lewisville Morning Rotary today - “the conscience of the community”. Meaning, it is up to us to make the community aware that there are children in our community that go to school underfed, without healthcare, undersupported and destined to fail, eventually, in school. Following the amazing Dr. Penny Reddell, who gave a brief overview of the state of Lewisville ISD, was a perfect way to demonstrate the strong partnership that exists between CISNT and LISD and our passion for finding people who will invest deeply in helping “our” children.
The Lewisville Morning Rotary is embarking on a project to provide dictionaries to Lewisville students who are English Language Learners or who possess Limited English Proficiency. And as Dr. Reddell so eloquently shared with the rotarians, ELL’s come from all ethnic backgrounds, but share one common factor - they live in homes that are at, or below, the Federal Poverty level.
CISNT former Mentor of the Year and Lewisville Rotarian, Ray Irwin and longtime friend of CISNT and ARAMARK executive, John Pokorny shared the details of the dictionary project. In the next few weeks, hundreds of poor Lewisville children will receive a new dictionary that will belong to them - not their school, not their classroom - their’s to keep forever!
Sometimes being the conscience of the community is a painfully hard and sometimes lonely job for our staff. Today, with the amazing men and women of the Lewisville Morning Rotary, it was a joy!
