Sept. 4, 2008 — Rotary International's 2008-2000 theme, "Make Dreams Real," has special significance this year for 11,500 Virgin Islands public school students who will each receive a Coole School planner.
The distribution of planners will be launched at 10 a.m. Friday at Charlotte Amalie High School. Local and international Rotary Clubs and the V.I. National Guard Counterdrug Task Force partnered for the first time this year to make the planners available territory-wide.
Both organizations have distributed the planning notebooks in the past individually, but on a much more modest scale.
The expansion of the planners from the fifth and sixth grades only to third through twelfth grades will not only raise the distribution, but will enable the National Guard to raise the profile of its five-year-old anti-drug school program.
Michele Vanterpool, Rotary of Charlotte Amalie president, said Wednesday, "We've been doing this for two or three years, but this is the first time for the entire territory. Actually, the books are already in the schools – this is a ceremonial distribution."
Vanterpool said Rotary has worked with National Guard Sgt. Melinda Gibson. "She's the person with the hands-on experience."
Gibson was eager to talk about the project. "We have never been able to do this on such a large scale," she said. Gibson is one of a handful of Guard officers who go in the classrooms and teach a 45-minute class, using the planners in combination with the organization's anti-drug use initiatives.
Gibson said she talks about six character traits, such as integrity which she defined as "doing the right thing when no one is looking," and how they will help build a good citizen. "After we do the character traits," she says, "we give them a discussion about drugs such as alcohol. We talk to them about the effects of alcohol, how it takes them out of control."
She said the planners help the students organize daily events, they have spelling lessons, they have homework. "Parents have to sign off on the homework, so the teachers can see how the kids are doing at home."
The total cost of the planners is more than $27,000, according to a Rotary release. It was made possible through the 10 V.I. Rotary Clubs, a matching grant from Rotary International and Rotary Districts 7020 and 7710. The grant was the product of a joint effort of the local Rotary and the Chapel Hill-Carrboro and Roxboro, N.C., clubs.
Joseph Felicien, co-chairman of Rotary's Community Service Council, said in the release, "The V.I. Rotary Clubs along with its partners is proud to sponsor this educational project as it manifests our commitment to making a difference in our community by investing in our students."
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