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[upbeat music]
Alright you guys ready? Okay... [Laughter]
My name is Beth Behnke and I’m the school principal here at
Linwood Monroe Arts Plus and I am grateful for the ACES program.
They are here on a weekly basis helping our forth through 8th graders
in areas of reading and math as well as community service.
They’re a staple of our community for more than a decade and this
partnership has made a world of a difference for our students as they
grow into young adults and seen them come back and truly be the volunteers
that are part or the ACES programs.
The students are working on different activities,
that are tied to the content they’re working in their
in-school classrooms on.
They’re also tied to the state standards so what the teachers
during the day are working on, the ACES classroom
programming is also reinforcing.
(female) We run all of our programs out of our school sites and
this gives us the ability to connect with all of the school
day teachers on a very frequent basis and we can talk to them
about individual students and the needs that those students
have, both academically and socially.
When I grow up, I want to be a doctor and ACES can help me by...
with my homework, get all my homework turned in.
In my time at ACES I’ve kind of felt that my role has been
providing this sense of communication and relationship
with the kids and being able to provide a positive role model but also
someone to connect with on an interpersonal level and providing
this sense of you know friendship beyond just here I am to mentor you
and to assist in your classroom.
One of the most important things is just being here every time for
the kids and helping them with their homework
and just going through the curriculum and learning something new.
One of the unique things about ACES is our partnerships
with the sports teams, the Twins, the Wild, the Vikings,
the Timberwolves, United FC and Saints.
They provide great incentives for our
students to achieve in the classroom.
Kids get really excited when they know down the road,
they’re going to get a nice reward like going to a special
game or special event with one of the teams
if they do well on their academic project.
Okay we’re going to do a couple more journal prompts
and I want at least three full sentences.
What is unique about Linwood Monroe Arts Plus ACES program
is that they are exclusive to us two days a week.
Opportunities for students therefore are deeper relationships because those
kids have made commitments along with those volunteers for the entire year
in order for them to deepen, their reading,
their math as well as going out on fieldtrips and
experiencing community outreach with them as well.
I was attracted to ACES and actually heard about it about
two years ago originally and I wasn’t quite familiar with it.
What really got me is I was in an afterschool program when I was in
elementary school and high school as well.
It definitely helped set the ground work of
letting me know how important education is.
How to see what hard work and dedication can do for you.
(male) I think it’s really important that those of us who have
opportunity to work in this community,
work in this area, actually give back.
We’re here today to actually think about you know where
we actually made an impact and who made an impact on us
and how do we actually take those opportunities that we were blessed with
and actually give back to these kids and give them a chance
that they probably wouldn’t have had if we weren’t able to give
to these kids and actually give them a chance to do something
different-- and to see that people outside of their immediate
community actually care about them growing as a student,
as an athlete tying right back into their knowledge in the community.
[music]