Tag Archives: Steelcase Foundation

Arbor Circle receives grant from Steelcase Foundation in support of children’s mental health

3-bottom, Citizen Journalism, Community Health, Health, Kent County, West Michigan, , , , , ,
Arbor Circle teams up with Steelcase Foundation in a common goal to help West Michigan communities (Courtesy, www.pxhere.com)

By WKTV Staff

deborah@wktv.org

Arbor Circle works to remove barriers and meet the mental health needs of children, their parents, and their caregivers (Courtesy, Arbor Circle)

Arbor Circle is celebrating a recent $100,000 grant from Steelcase Foundation in support of a 2-year project focused on mental health support for children and families.

As communities continue to recover from the ongoing effects of the pandemic, isolation and lack of consistency has had a significant impact on the social and emotional development of children. The last few years have spotlighted several inequities.

The impact of the pandemic on social determinants of health paired with access to resources such as housing, employment, healthcare, and education have created major challenges and disruptions in the lives of families – specifically communities of color and those in poverty.

Help is on the way

One of Michigan’s most comprehensive providers of mental health counseling, substance use treatment, and family services, Arbor Circle serves thousands of individuals and families each year. With deep roots in West Michigan, Arbor Circle collaborates with local resources to address needs in the community.

Steelcase Foundation connects resources with people by providing grants to nonprofit organizations focused on cultivating thriving communities through education and quality learning experiences.

Together, these two organizations have a common goal.

Removing barriers for a healthier life

Arbor Circle works to remove barriers and meet the mental health needs of children, their parents and caregivers where they are.

A variety of support services will be delivered to the community through the grant (Courtesy, www.pxhere.com

The Steelcase Foundation funds will support services throughout the community, including skill building for parents and caregivers, support for children in meeting both developmental and educational milestones, and specialized mental health support.

“We are deeply grateful to partner with The Steelcase Foundation in this way, and are honored to work together in ensuring that children and families have the tools they need to thrive,” said Kristin Gietzen, President and CEO of Arbor Circle. “We are energized by this support and see great potential in the multi-generational and community-focused approach woven into this project.”

To learn more about Arbor Circle’s children and family services, visit https://arborcircle.org/help/children-families/.

Kent District Library goes mobile to reach underserved areas, improve reading proficiency

3-bottom, City of Kentwood, City of Wyoming, , , , , , ,

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By Joanne Bailey-Boorsma

joanne@wktv.org

 

In Kent County, about 50 percent of the third grade students are at a grade level reading proficiency, and 50 percent are not. It is odds that the Kent District Library hopes to improve upon with the launch of its new bookmobile.

 

“There are several studies that have shown that if [students] hadn’t hit reading level proficiency by third grade they have a deficit that actually kind of hobbles their ability to be successful in further schooling efforts especially after they get done with high school,” said KDL Executive Director Lance Werner. “They face a struggle pretty much for the rest of their lives.”

 

However, by getting reading materials to students before or as they enter third grade, KDL hopes to help make a dent in the area’s third grade reading issues. To help with that, KDL decided to turn to an old program it offered about 30 years ago  — a bookmobile.

 

KDL Executive Director Lance Werner in the new KDL Bookmobile.

“A lot of people say, why not just use technology, and the honest God truth is not everybody has access to technology and sometimes taking a low tech solution makes sense,” said Werner during a recent unveiling of the bookmobile at Steelcase. “We want to make sure people have access to physical materials and actual books as well as technology.

 

“That’s the whole purpose of the bookmobile. It is literally a library on wheels.”

 

The bookmobile was made possible through a $208,000 grant from the Steelcase Foundation with a Frey Foundation grant covering the bookmobile’s materials and J&H Family Stores covering a full year of fuel.

 

The bookmobile is 36 feet long, 11 feet tall and 8.5 feet wide. It weighs about 22,000 pounds with the collection inside. That collection includes books, DVDs, audiobooks, magazines, and video games. The bookmobile itself is a hotspot and will also have hotspots available for checkout as well as iPads and computers. Additional, from April to October, the bookmobile will have two bicycles available for checkout.

 

The white, green and blue vehicle has a TV screen on the outside to allow for movie presentations. There is also a lift on the back of the bookmobile, so it is handicap accessible.

 

The new KDL Bookmobile was unveiled at a special event at Steelcase. The Steelcase Foundation helped to launch the project with a $208,000 grant.

The bookmobile will be visiting a number of locations from area schools to retirement centers. KDL Community Engagement Manager Sara Proano said materials can be tailored to a specific location. So if the stop is at a school, age appropriate items will be available, and if the stop is a retirement center, materials, such as large print books, will be geared more towards that age range.

 

Werner said the biggest focus is the areas that are underserved because they are rural and/or there are not libraries available.

 

“There are a lot of areas of Kent County that are underserved and we want to make sure we are able to reach people where they are at,” Werner said, adding that the bookmobile will be visiting schools in the Wyoming and Kentwood areas.

 

“We aim to be a part of the campus and have stops on their campuses to make sure that kids not only have excellent services from their media centers in the school, but excellent services from the Kent District Library and a lot of times school kids have the biggest transportation issues out of all of us and really for some of those kids the only chance they will get to visit the library will be to visit the bookmobile when it comes to their school.”

 

The bookmobile will run Mondays through Thursdays plus Saturdays. Fridays are reserved for special events and maintenance. The bookmobile will return to locations so that people have time to return materials, Werner said, adding that materials can be returned to any KDL branch.

 

For the bookmobile schedule visit kdl.org and go to events, clicking bookmobile under branches or go to kdl.org/bookmobile where people can request a visit from the bookmobile.

 

Kelloggsville, KDL join together to open high school library to the entire community

3-bottom, City of Kentwood, City of Wyoming, , , , , ,

By Joanne Bailey-Boorsma

joanne@wktv.org

 

The new library is scheduled to open Jan. 9 with an official open house as part of the Jan. 17 Kelloggsville Rocket Family Night. The event is from 5:30-7 p.m. at the high school, 4787 S. Division Ave.

 

The state-of-the-art library was part of a $33.9 million bond proposal passed by Kelloggsville voters in February 2015. About $29 million of the bond proposal was dedicated to the high school with major changes that included a redesigned entrance on Division Avenue along with a new gym and an indoor track facility. The goal, according to Kelloggsville Director of Curriculum Tammy Savage, was to have all these facilities open to the public.

 

A room with a view: the new state-of-the-art library at Kelloggsville High School.

“Our community members don’ have access to a library in walking distance,” Savage said of the decision to have the library open to the community. “It is over four miles to the Wyoming branch and over five miles to the Kentwood branch.”

 

Kelloggsvile officials approached KDL and brought library representatives in for a tour of the new library facility.

 

“At KDL, we are always looking for ways to make library services easier and more convenient for the residents of Kent County and we know that transportation can be a barrier for the folks in Kelloggsville, especially the young children who have parents who work all day,” said  KDL Director of Branch Services and Operations Lindsey Dorfman. “So we are really happy to bring KDL services right to their backyard.”

 

KDL has 18 partnerships with various local municipalities including the cities of Kentwood and Wyoming. The partnership with Kelloggsville will be similar in that Kelloggsville owns the building and will be responsible for the care and maintenance of the facility just like Wyoming and Kentwood. KDL operates the library services within the buildings such as the staffing, collections and technology. Dorfman said the unique element to the Kelloggsville/KDL partnership is that the staffing with a be a team effort between the two organizations.

 

There are a lots of places for students to study and collaborate.

With the focus being on equity of service, according to Dorfman, the collection at the new Kelloggsville branch will be similar to what other KDL branches offer. It will have a range of books from preschool to adult along with the Beyond Books Collection that includes iPads, Go Pro cameras and even ukuleles. Also KDL programming such as KDLville Play and KDL Lab Spaces will be available. Both students and community members also will be able to reserve materials from other KDL branches that can be delivered to the Kelloggsville branch along with access to the Michigan Electronic Library (MEL), which allows patrons to order books from all over the state and have them delivered to their neighborhood library.

 

Savage said the Steelcase Foundation gave the district a $250,000 grant for seed money to get the community library project started. And while the library has not officially opened, response to the remodeled high school and the library facility has been overwhelmingly positive, Savage said.

 

“We had an open house in early October and we had over 200 people here for the open house at the high school and people were very excited about what they saw here,” Savage said. “Again, this is a fabulous space that [has been] renovated and then to have things like this, a 6,500-square-foot media center be here and know it is going to be open to the community…our community is very impressed and very happy about this.”

 

The KDL collection will include materials for all ages, pre-school to adult.

The Kelloggsville Library, which has its own entrance on the north side of the high school or to the right of the high school’s main entrance, will have community hours that will include three evenings, 3-8 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays and every other Saturday from 9 a.m. – 1 p.m. Additional hours will be added during the summertime.

 

For more information on programs and hours at the new KDL Kelloggsvile Branch, visit the branch’s page at kdl.org/locations/kelloggsville-branch.

 

Grant from Steelcase Foundation allows Kent District Library to bring back the Bookmobile

3-bottom, City of Kentwood, City of Wyoming, , , , ,

Kent District Library is pleased to announce that it has received a $208,000 grant from the Steelcase Foundation to design and offer a bookmobile to the KDL community.

 

This mobile library will enable KDL to bring its services and programming to Kent County residents who can’t travel to one of its 18 branches on a regular basis. When it hits the streets in winter 2018, it will be equipped with a vast assortment of collection materials for both children and adults.

 

The bookmobile, which will take 6-9 months to craft, will be outfitted with Wi-Fi, a video screen, a computer, printer, and modular shelves. The vehicle will also be handicapped accessible and will offer security features

 

“The Steelcase Foundation chose to support the new KDL bookmobile because of its alignment with the Foundation’s mission of empowering people to reach their full potential by encouraging early learning experiences, family literacy and improving access to books, programs and computer learning throughout Kent County,” said Steelcase Foundation President Julie Ridenour. “While not a new concept, the bookmobile will take these opportunities to the communities where they are most needed. The Steelcase Foundation hopes there will be a future time when today’s young and new readers will share their bookmobile experiences with their own families.”

 

The bookmobile will allow Kent District Library to share its programs and collection with patrons, particularly students, beyond the walls of the branch library. KDL will partner with Kent School Services Network, or KSSN, to bring the bookmobile to seven elementary schools each week. The bookmobile will also bring the library to senior centers, rural centers, summer day care programs and a variety of other locations.

 

“KDL is thrilled to offer library services and programs that can help improve our students’ reading ability through this partnership with KSSN,” said Linda Krombeen, development manager for Kent District Library. “We are extremely grateful to the Steelcase Foundation for its generosity in making this effort a reality.”

 

One of KDL’s goals in offering the bookmobile is to increase reading proficiency in third grade students. In 2016, 50 percent of Kent County third graders were not proficient in English language arts.

 

“The Kent School Services Network is very excited to partner with the KDL on the Bookmobile grant,” said Carol Paine-McGovern, executive director of KSSN. “Bringing access to library programs and collections to schools is a community school strategy that will have a positive impact on early literacy and parent engagement.”

 

Kent District Library will seek donations to fill the bookmobile with books and other materials.