This microproject will allow local students at a small K-8 small community charter school to publish their own novels, both improving vital writing skills and encouraging them to pursue further education. In partnering with alternative break programs, the college students will be able to support and mentor while being inspired into lives of active citizenship.
There is need for education reform in New Mexico where remote schools are integral to the community's survival, and schools and communities worked together for each other's benefit. Declining population and dwindling economic opportunities are ongoing struggles, and promising rural revitalization efforts launched in 2005 have since lost funding. Advocates for education reform nationally or locally are sporadic or muted in these isolated and underfunded communities.
This microproject will engage college students to work with Roots and Wings, a small, K-8 public charter school located at the base of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in Lama, New Mexico. The alternative breakers will support a Writer's Workshop project, where the school's student are able to write and publish their own historical fiction novel. Volunteers will work one-on-one with the young students to read and edit daily writing prompts, in a mentoring and support role.
Roots and Wings is an ideal community organization to build a long-term relationship with for alternative breakers. The volunteers meet the need of temporary capacity increase for the small staff, interaction with college role models and at the same time, the interactions with students and teachers galvanize the volunteers into a position of advocacy for the organization and overall education reform. Books will be printed and purchased - one for keeping and one to give away.
