CISNTblog

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!

Seniors dressed as witches, vampires and pumpkins and CISNT kids playing Pin the Tale on the Mummy - just another CISNT Halloween with our friends at Pinewood Hills!  Tina and the gracious staff and residents at Pinewood Hills gave our Hedrick Elementary School Connections kids a Halloween to remember this afternoon.  Hot dogs, nachos, candy, games, and the best part - getting to trick or treat each resident at Pinewood Hills. CISNT kids and Pinewood seniors playing and eating together.  Smiles and singing on the Pinewood Hills bus all the way back to school!

Students at-risk of dropping out of school have so much to give - so do our seniors in the community.  We’ll go back soon.  Alberto has a chess “rematch”…  Thank you Pinewood Hills for caring so much about the children in our community who need our support to succeed.

Why do we take CISNT kids to a UNT basketball game instead of a Dallas Maverick’s game?  It’s not that we aren’t Mavs Fans For Life!  We love the Mavs!

We take students who are at-risk of failing in school to the University of North Texas coliseum to see Mean Green basketball game because of the awesome experience of taking CISNT students to a university campus.  They think we’re watching basketball - in reality, we’re introducing them to a life changing experience called college…

 Later this year, CISNT will once again take hundreds of our students to Denton to see a UNT basketball game.  Many of our mentors, including our ePals from General Electric, will be joining us.  We need help paying for buses to transport our students.  Can you help?  For less than the cost of 2 floor tickets at The American Airlines Center, nachos and a coke, you can provide a bus for 50 kids to the game!

NorthPoint Christian Church deeply invested in the CISNT Saturday Connections program at Central Elementary school last year.  Returning this school year, NP volunteers are a vital part of the CISNT Connections program success at Central Elementary. 

NP volunteers and CISNT staff recently took our Connections students to the Lewisville Central Fire Station for a tour.  What a great experience for our students!

It’s great to see people make their first connection and find out how easy it is to help kids who are at-risk of dropping out of school.  Last week our dear friends from Pinewood Hills retirement community came out to our Saturday “Connections” mentoring program at Hedrick Elementary School in Lewisville. 

In only a few minutes, two very different generations were building relationships.  It’s relationships that really make the difference.  It’s so simple.  It’s so powerful. The seniors really connected with the kids and the kids really loved meeting the seniors.

 On October 31st, the friendships formed will be renewed when Connections students visit the seniors at Pinewood Hills for a fun afternoon of decorating bags and going “trick or treating” to the guests of Pinewood Hills.

After a record breaking mentor training session, we are still amazed with our growing school-based mentorship partnership with The Village Church.  On October 14th nearly 200 individuals were trained from The Village Church in Highland Village and Denton campuses to serve as CISNT volunteer mentors to at-risk students in CISNT programs at Denton ISD, Lewisville ISD, Lttle Elm ISD and Northwest ISD.  We met an amazing group of people who have reached out to serve the at-risk students in a very meaningful way!  Joe Ader and his crew are truly making a difference in our community!

 Watch a portion of the training event here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_UNLbM5uQ8