Reaching Out...for the Kids

Photo by Chuck Cook

NEA-Retired members contribute to thriving Outreach to Teach program.

They left with sore backs, paint-spattered clothes--and a feeling of pride that can't be topped. NEA-Retired members recently worked side-by-side with NEA Student and Active members cleaning, painting, and planting at the St. John Child Development Center in Garyville, Louisiana. The cause? Outreach to Teach, a program that targets a different high-needs school each year in the host city for the NEA Representative Assembly (RA).

For seven hours, the 300 volunteers painted classrooms and hallways; planted trees, flowers, and shrubs; decorated bulletin boards; organized storage areas; and even created a teachers' lounge at the school, which is located about 30 miles from New Orleans.

"I thought it would be a great thing to go into a school like this and see a complete transformation in one day," says Charles Smith, a retired science teacher from Jefferson County, Alabama. "To me there's nothing more rewarding."

Virginia Education Association-Retired member Kathleen Hairston has participated in Outreach to Teach for the past four years. "I always enjoy working with the younger generation, and I like seeing the school look so different after we leave," she says. "You know the children will appreciate it because it will be such a surprise when they come back."

Outreach to Teach started in 1996, when a group of 35 Student Program leaders organized a school beautification project during the Student Leadership Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. Since then, attendees of the annual Student and NEA-Retired conferences, along with other NEA members, have volunteered at a local school during the week preceding the RA.

In addition, some states run their own versions of Outreach to Teach. Wisconsin Education Association Council-Retired member Bob Henning, for example, has participated in the Badger State's program the last two years. He learned of Wisconsin's program while serving as parliamentarian to the Student WEAC. Not long afterward, the former math teacher, who runs his own handyman service, was helping to make 150 bluebird houses sold as a fundraiser for a designated Outreach to Teach school. This spring, he worked from sunup to sundown as part of the state's Outreach to Teach program at Westside Elementary School in Kimberly, Wisconsin, then toiled at the St. John Child Development Center while attending the RA in New Orleans.

"When I see what the students are accomplishing, it just makes my heart swell," says Henning. "By the time we're done, the school looks immaculate. I feel sometimes that students can use our wisdom and guidance, but we can also learn from them."

--Kristen Loschert
and Cheryl Ross