Sharing Local Impact

Blog post written by Tricia Busch, Iowa Reading Corps AmeriCorps member at Ballard East Elementary.

Tricia Busch (third from left) and the
Ballard East Reading Corps team.

At the beginning of March, our Reading Corps team at Ballard East hosted a site visit with the United Way of Story County (UWSC). The United Way visitors were able to observe a Reading Corps intervention to see how their funding and support of Reading Corps is helping local students. We discussed how things were going and I shared success stories and edSpring graphs for some of my Reading Corps students.

In addition, my Internal Coach at Ballard East and my Heartland Area Education Association (AEA) Hybrid Coach were also able to participate in the meeting to share how they have helped me during my term of AmeriCorps service. I feel very fortunate to be serving at one of the three schools that are currently piloting this partnership with the Heartland AEA and am glad that I could use this opportunity to express my appreciation with the United Way visitors. 

At the end of the month, I also had an opportunity to interact with students and their family members at Ballard East's “Literacy Luau.” The event was a Hawaiian themed night, hosted by Ballard East, dedicated to literacy. Each classroom featured a variety of literacy-based games and we also provided a book walk and book fair for students. I enjoyed being a part of this night and helping with the games. The students were very excited to bring their parents to school, they all had a blast, and the night was a success!