June Newsletter
Greetings from SCFP!
Freedom School is officially underway! We have thirty students at the center every day taking classes in reading, writing, math, drama, and Tae Kwon Do. In addition to academic enrichment and extracurricular activity, our Freedom Fellows are eating healthy lunches, meaning no soda, candy, or fried food. First year Fellow DeAndre McMath describes the dietary adjustment as “not good” but admits that eating healthier food is “important because it keeps us awake and ready to learn.”
The Freedom Project is also happy to announce the arrival of two new staff members! My name is Nick Allen and I will be the new SCFP director and author of these monthly updates. After graduating from Brown University in 2009, I joined Teach for America and took a position as a fourth grade teacher in Clarksdale, Mississippi where I taught the past two years.
Justine Moser is our wonderful new Program Director. Justine graduated from Concordia College in 2008 and joined Teach for America as a fifth grade teacher in Leland, Mississippi. After completing two years in the classroom, Justine worked for Southern Bancorp while continuing her involvement in arts education through Greenville Arts Council and Delta Center Stage.
Both Justine and I are thrilled by the opportunity to work with children in Sunflower County and we look forward to continuing in the rich tradition of the Freedom Project.
Cheers,
Nick Allen
Dear SCFP Family,
Happy Holidays from the Sunflower County Freedom Project! As you decide which charitable contributions to make before the end of the year, we hope you will consider supporting us.
lopment are our bread and butter, but we also offer a variety of unique experience to expose our students to the world beyond the Delta – college visits, camping trips, drama tours, language training, and more.
The Freedom Project is part of the long-term solution to the problems facing the Delta. We run our year-round programming for less than $300 per day and have never taken any government money – we instead rely on the generosity of you, our SCFP extended family. Please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to our program by sending a gift to us by mail or by making a donation on line at: www.sunflowerfreedom.org/contribute. Thank you.
This month, Fellows got to visit with international exchange students studying at Ole Miss. Freedom Fellows got a taste of France, Italy, China, Taiwan, Germany, Sweden, and Peru, learning a bit about the culture and language of each country. Everyone had a fantastic time – including the visitors! They were so excited about the SCFP that they’re planning to join us again next semester with a new batch of international students. We can’t wait!
Midway through the month, our Halloween committee started planning for a terrifyingly spooky night at the LEAD Center. Students took a haunted tour of the old dojang before being admitted to a party where there was apple bobbing, pumpkin painting, lots of sweet treats (which are usually contraband at the Freedom Project), and a visit from former students and staff. These fun activities are important breaks for our students and always serve to re-energize them for study sessions and Saturday SLAM programs.
We also took on the challenge of our beloved Silver Bullet, a trusty old van that once carried Freedom Fellows across the country on drama and field trips. It had been enjoying semi-retirement due to a drop in attendance over the past few years. But, this fall, we’ve recruited enough students that we once again need the additional transportation space! We armed ourselves with cans of Raid and defeated a swarm of wasps in our attempt to resurrect the vehicle. Ultimately, however, we discovered that a bad transmission will keep us from saving the Silver Bullet. The dilemma we now face is immense: we have a new pool of students in Moorhead, Mississippi, but we don’t have the means of transporting them to the Center.
After our inaugural Saturday SLAM this past weekend, we can already tell it’s going to be a successful semester! More than 35 students have passed through our doors already and we’re expecting our recruitment efforts to bring in more this week. Our secret weapon? Chris Perkins! Mr. Perkins has arrived back in Sunflower and is already hard at work. His Tae Kwon Do class is extremely popular, he’s teaching high school classics like The Odyssey and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, and students already know – if you don’t bring homework to study session – you’ll be doing vocab-building exercises with Mr. Perkins!
Georgie saw a real need at the Freedom Project this summer – she got to experience the full wrath of our ancient copier, purchased back when we were first starting off in the late 90s. After a summer of coaxing copies from the old machine, Georgie did something amazing – she donated a new one! We’re saving tons of time with the new machine – time that can be now spent with students. Thank you, Georgie!
