Outreach Weekend Report

April 30- May 1, 2004

Summary:

by Justin Placek, ESLARP Outreach Weekend Assistant

The East St. Louis Action Research Project has ended the 2004 school year with yet another successful outreach weekend. The success of this weekend can be directly attributed to the strong support and work ethic of the 60 volunteers we brought as well as the 80 or so residents that joined us over the weekend. This combined effort created a great learning environment for all five projects that were worked on over the weekend. It was this strong teamwork that enabled these projects to either be finished or progress greatly over the weekend even though the weather was not on our side.

Reports:

Positive House

The Positive House, 811 N. 25th St, is being renovated and will serve as a youth center. On Friday 8 students and staff teamed up with 20 Youth Build Students and Mr. Higgins to help Pastor Waddell insulate and drywall the upstairs of the Positive House. Also, a few students help cleanup parts of the yard behind the house. On Saturday, the same team continued to drywall until it got too dark upstairs, due to the thunderstorms and lack of electricity.

Community Theatre

On Friday, 3 students joined the Fisher's on a trip across the Mississippi River and into St. Louis. With the approval of the owner, Jassen Johnson, they raided the warehouse for a number of 2X8's and 2X10's to be used in their Community Theatre in Centerville,IL. Two truck loads later, a large stack of 2X's were ready to be cleaned. On Saturday, 6 students and the Fisher's pulled the nails out of each piece of lumber. After lunch, a few Students helped Christina Fisher put up a Mural, while the others continued to clean the lumber.

Emerson Park Cleanup

On Friday, 10 students from the University of Illinois teamed up with 60 students and staff from the Tomorrows Builders Charter School in East St. Louis. Kathy Andria helped helped organize the University of Illinois students, while Vickie Forbe and her staff organized their students. Once both teams got together they worked together to do a general cleanup along both sides of Collinsville St. Numerous garbage bags were filled before the day was cut short due to rain and placed in piles for the city to pick up. Overall the number of students and staff involved allowed for a large area to be cleanup, which resulted in a successful attempt to help beautify the neighborhood.

New Bethel Church Flyering

On Saturday, a section of the Prairie Net students joined with members of the New Bethel Church and went door to door flyering. The flyers contained information on a summer church camp that the New Bethel Church was having.

CTC Setup

This weekend approximately 30 students and staff members of Prairie Net worked together to set up a total of 4 Computer Technology Centers. These CTC's were setup at New Bethel Church, Crossroads Academy, Veterans, and New Dimension. This weekend was a great way to end the the 2004 school year, which saw Prairie Net set up 10 public computer labs.

More photos from the weekend.

Document author(s) : listed above
Last modified:5 June 2004, Justin Placek
EAST ST LOUIS ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT