Dear Friend:
At Circle Urban we believe that we have found a way to bring pride, teamwork and accomplishment into the children’s lives through the development of the enrichment efforts that are part of our after-school program. So, we are presenting an opportunity for the children to LIFT Every Voice (and gift and ability) in celebration of their accomplishment as part of a well designed performance.
You might be asking yourself if Circle Urban really needs another addition to its wrap-around programs in the after-school arena. Just to be clear, LIFT Every Voice is a broadening and deepening of the enrichment portion of our after-school program. I’d like to take a few minutes of your time to fill you in on our thought process.
This past spring we held a performance celebration for the culmination of our enrichment activities in the Circle4Success After-School Enrichment Program. Of course we have offered seasonal programs in which the children provided the entertainment, but this time it was different.
What was different? A number of the enrichment leaders not only taught the students a new skill, they prepared them to share it in a way that highlighted that skill and entertained as well. I’m sure we’ve all attended recitals or performances where the skill level wasn’t very impressive, but, because we knew and cared about the artist, we accepted the performance as entertaining.
What we witnessed in our spring celebration was students who were better prepared to perform at a higher level. This preparation not only provided a much more broadly entertaining set of performances; we also saw a level of pride for their accomplishments that we haven’t seen before.
At our evaluation of the spring celebration, we all felt that the pride and accomplishment the children exhibited was something that we wanted to nurture in a deeper way. We saw the opportunity to build on the enrichment activity and bring a teamwork experience to the children involved in Circle’s after-school program.
I know for myself that a reason I involved my children in team sports as they grew up was to add important elements to their development: the value of being part of a team working together for a common purpose, learning the discipline of hard work for a future benefit, seeing that as individuals we might do okay, but through a joint effort we can accomplish much more.
We hope you will join with us in support of this important program. We hope you will come to LIFT Every Voice to celebrate with us and them.
Please click on the LIFT Every Voice button below my picture to the right to read more about LIFT.
Sincerely, Glen Kehrein
Executive Director
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