Beacon offers new, improved SAS program
The Beacon of H.O.P.E. offers services to every age group on the island. One of the programs, Students Achieving Success, is an educational program for children in 4th and 5th grades. The SAS program has been reworked to “reach” the 4th and 5th graders more effectively.
“The newest, and maybe most important addition, to the SAS program has been the Chrome book computers,” Beacon of H.O.P.E. director Betsy Haesemeyer said. “A Chrome book is a small laptop computer that uses Chrome as its operating system. It’s not quite a laptop and is mostly used while connected to the Internet with applications and data residing in the ‘Cloud.'”
Since 2012, the Chrome book has been used mostly in schools but the Beacon of H.O.P.E., with the help of the Bobby Holloway Jr. Memorial Fund, now incorporates them into their SAS program.
Paul Pichon and Jamie Barnhill are co-coordinators of the SAS program.
“It gives the children an opportunity to use a computer even though they might not have one at home,” SAS co-coordinator Pichon said. “We are very grateful to the Bobby Holloway Memorial Fund for donating the money to purchase three Chrome books. They also fund all of the books in our library.
“The Chrome books allow us to monitor what the kids are doing,” Pichon said. “I can go online tonight for example, and know what assignments a SAS student has done at 10 Marks.com or the Kahn Academy.”
10 Marks and Khan Academy are non-profit educational organizations with the aim of providing world-class education for anyone, anywhere via the internet. These organizations produce short lectures in the form of YouTube videos.
“Students can get all kinds of help with videos,” Pichon said. “If a student is stuck on a problem, resources are easily available for them. Pine Island Elementary School uses the same equipment and websites.”
“We have refocused our goals of the SAS program,” Haesemeyer said. “We are focusing more on the quality points of helping them develop a ‘sense of self-esteem,’ ‘a caring relationship with someone’ and, with Paul and Jamie’s help, we went back to scratch and started over re-focusing on these things. And we have the 3rd graders coming in this year and this is the best time to start. Changing a teen is more difficult than developing a child from SAS to SPIRIT.”
“I would say the biggest differences between previous SAS and what has been happening this year is a deliberate focus on getting as close to one-on-one mentoring as possible,” Pichon said. “Making sure that there is a clear pipeline from SAS to SPIRIT so that we can see the growth of our students through high school is a big change as well. Socratic-based lessons ranging from communication to community service allow for a lot of student talk time.”
“There are so many exciting things SAS does for these kids,” Haesemeyer said. “Last year, when we took some kids to the Broadway Palm, some were excited about being in a elevator for the first time. This year some of our SAS kids will experience fishing for the first time.”
The Beacon of H.O.P.E. is in need of mentors.
“The most important quality of a mentor is simply being there,” Pichon said. “Offering one-on-one time is the biggest thing you can do for a child and the response and ‘reward’ from the child is overwhelming.”
“Overall, the program builds team building,” Haesemeyer said. “This is an opportunity for Pine Island adults to mentor and tutor Pine Island children. This can be a very rewarding experience and people can make a difference in as little as 15 minutes.”
For more, contact the Beacon of H.O.P.E. at 239-382-5123 or visit beaconofhopepineisland.com. The facility is at 5090 Doug Taylor Circle in St. James City.