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RELEASED: August 26, 2004
DANVILLE, KY—After completing his English lesson, a small Mexican boy had one more question for the Centre College volunteer: would she be willing to come to his house to help his mother?
As he asked, he shyly offered a small heart-shaped box of chocolates to help assure that she’d agree. She was happy to go assist his mother.
In part because of interactions such as this one between the College and Kentucky’s growing Latino community, Centre has been awarded a 3M Vision Grant. Five private colleges received the grants that recognize schools for moving learning beyond the classroom and into the community.
Centro Latino is a student-faculty collaborative venture to assist the Latino community. The 3M Grant is for $49,905 over the next three years. It will make possible a resource center staffed by Centre students and faculty from the Spanish department. During the summer, Governor’s Scholars at Centre will assist with the program.
This new program will allow the College to expand on its efforts. For the past six years Centre Spanish students have been deeply involved with service learning. Each semester, students in most Spanish classes are required to participate in 15 hours of community service in the Latino community.
Through these relationships Centre students and faculty have realized that more needs to be done to help families with issues such as medical care, child care and many other tasks that are difficult for anyone who doesn’t speak English.
Centro Latino’s office will be in downtown Danville, which is near Centre’s campus. It will be open 20 hours a week Monday through Friday. It will serve about 600 Latinos in Danville/Boyle Co. It’s slated to open in October. Over the course of the grant, an estimated 140 Centre students will be involved in the project.
Mary Daniels, associate professor of Spanish, will direct the project. Daniels has studied extensively in Latin America and has been a leader in instigating service learning opportunities in the Latino community. Assisting her will be Betsy Dahms ’03, who coordinates the service-learning assignments of all Centre Spanish students.
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Founded in 1819, Centre College is ranked among the U.S. News top 50 national liberal arts colleges. Centre alumni, known for their nation-leading loyalty in annual financial support, include two U.S. vice presidents and two Supreme Court justices. For more, visit http://www.centre.edu/web/elevatorspeech/
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