Welcome to the Winner’s Circle

Winner’s Circle members have been honored by the Membership Services Committee for initiating a unique, successful program or implementing an innovative idea that has had a significant, positive impact on their school districts that can be used by other districts across the state. The 2007-08 inductees include:

Lori Tubbergen Clark, Newaygo County RESA, Region 3

Kids Hope USA mentoring

The Kids Hope USA mentoring Program Dr. Tubbergen Clark, through observations in the local school districts and in conversations with building administrators, quickly recognized that school staff are overwhelmed with the needs of children, especially in rural, high poverty Newaygo County . Teachers alone could not possibly meet the increasing needs of their students. She and her staff saw their students as "emotional checkbooks who were completely overdrawn.” She wrote and secured a grant to fund and sustain the Kids Hope USA mentoring program. She worked with community leaders who implored the church community to get involved. Churches then recruited mentors who could “make a deposit of love in the hearts of the children.” The district's teachers see Kids Hope USA as a link that connects disconnected children to caring mentors from neighborhood churches who can make these critical deposits.

To date, seven Newaygo County churches have partnered with NC RESA and the constituent districts to provide nearly 150 one-on-one mentors to elementary children throughout the county. This mentoring program is provided at no cost to any of the local school districts and grows in its number of mentors each year. Brenda Burt, executive administrative assistant, coordinates the countywide program with participating churches. One hundred percent of the Newago County superintendents and elementary principals have wholehearted endorsed this support of implementing Kids Hope USA in the schools. To provide at-risk children with the same one-on-one mentor for five years of elementary school is a gift for these children.

Contact Lori Tubbergen Clark at 2319248854 or lori@ncresa.org