“Mrs. Whitmore!”
The little girl shouts as she enters the room and sees her favorite reading companion Wilma Whitmore.
“There’s my girl,” Mrs. Whitmore replies. “How are you doing today?”
For the next 30 minutes the duo, separated by a good half-century in age, find common ground in the pages of books. They share tales of steam engines and colorful animals that live only in the imaginations of authors. They visit wonderful lands where no airplane can take them. They learn new words and sayings.
All of this they do because of a program called SMART (Start Making a Reader Today.
Although SMART has operated in Oregon for several years, including elsewhere in Linn county, it is just spreading its wings in Sweet Home, but doing so in a big way, according to coordinator Linda Koehne.
“I enjoy volunteering and reading with the kids,” Koehne said of her involvement with the program that matches volunteer with student for one-half hour of reading each week. Sometimes, you don’t think you’re making a difference. But when you come all the time, you really see a difference. One girl would not hardly say a peep when we started and last Tuesday she was reading to me.”
Thus far, nine volunteers are helping at Holley Elementary, 27 are at Pleasant Valley and 21 are at Hawthorne.
“We have 63 students in grades k-2 and one third grade student,” Mrs. Koehne said.
“We can still use some more volunteers,” she said. “The goal is to have a one-on-one relationship with the students. Currently, we have five volunteers who are doing double duty.”
Mrs. Koehne said she could use six more volunteers at Pleasant Valley, one at Holley and six at Hawthorne.
Students participate in SMART based on a number of criteria including such things as low self-esteem, or having a difficulty reading.
Volunteers come from all walks of life and are all ages.
Mrs. Whitmore retired after 39 years as a nurse and says she volunteers because she wanted to continue giving back to the community.
She is the perfect grandmother to her youngsters, whose eyes light up when they see her each week.
That rapport is important, Mrs. Koehne said.
“The kids get attached to the volunteers,” she said. “They look forward to seeing the adults and ask for them by name. It’s important that volunteers show up each week.”
The Linn and Benton county SMART program is already highly regarded in the state, Mrs. Koehne said. It has one of the higher percentages in terms of serving students in a one-on-on basis.
“The program is doing exceptionally well in Linn and Benton counties. In 1997, SMART was in five Albany schools serving approximately 150 students,” said Liz O’Donnell, area coordinator. “Today, we are in 15 schools, serving 505 students in grades K-3. This would never have been possible without community support.”
O’Donnell said a key to the program’s success is volunteerism.
“We have been warmly embraced by the residents of Sweet Home, but I was somewhat worried and concerned that night we held our volunteer training in Sweet Home in late September. We had less than a dozen persons attend and our goal was to serve 70 students. I made a plea to those in attendance to go out and recruit volunteers for our program and indeed, that’s exactly what happened.”
O’Donnell said she is amazed at the volunteering spirit of the Sweet Home community.
“Typically, in a new area, it takes a year before the program is where we want it to be, but in Sweet Home, it took only a couple months. This is simply remarkable and commendable. I believe everyone involved in the SMART program finds it a rewarding and satisfying experience.”
SMART is the sole organization funded through the Oregon Children’s Foundation which was founded in 1991 by former Governor Neil Goldschmidt.
SMART is working in 200 Oregon school and has given away more than 700,000 books.
According to SMART literature the program “is a book and reading program for children in kindergarten through second grade in low-income communities. Businesses, organizations and local residents provide the volunteers and funds necessary to operate the program.”
Students are provided two new books a month to take home and keep.
The program is important because,” one out of four kindergartners enters an Oregon elementary school two or more years behind in language development. Failure to read by the third grade increases the chances that a student will drop out of high school , have to deal with an early pregnancy or use drugs.”
SMART is a proven success…
– Students strengthen their literacy skills and form consistent relationships with caring adults.
– Reading attitudes improve at school and at home.
– Students come to school more often.
– Volunteers return to work more productive, feeling positive about their participation in SMART.
– Communities and families work together to develop a generation of more confident, educated children.
“SMART is a very basic, straight forward program. The key ingredient is volunteerism-one person stepping forward to help one child succeed. Making a personal commitment to children is the most important contribution you can make to the future of Oregon.”
Neil Goldschmidt
Chairman of the Board