Community Involvement and Home Education a Boon for Everybody!
by Laurie Wheeler
Community means a coming together of people, or place where people are gathered.
It's where we live, work, play, argue, laugh, cry, and love. Regardless of our choice to home educate, we are still members
of society and our individual communitites and have a great amount to offer!
Why just this fall eleven needy public school children were kitted out by several
home school groups in Snohomish county. The Community Resource Center in Stanwood was amazed and astounded at the caring and
rapid response by such an "unlikely" source of supplies for these children that will most likely never have the opportunity
to be home schooled. They now see home school groups as a resource to help out in other areas of the community. As well
as giving home school groups a venue through which to promote home schooling and natural learning as well!
It is not just enough to congregate together with our like minded groups to
provide social stimulation for our children and ourselves. When we do so we isolate ourselves from the rest of society and
they are not availed of the wonderful opportunity to not only hear about what we do but to see learning in action!
There are many venues which require the help of community members and who will
gladly accept children and whole families as volunteers! Hospitals, Senior Citizen Centers, Community Centers, Resource Centers,
all can benefit from our myriad of talent and skills. This giving benefits us in showing the non-home educating community
that we are indeed quite socially adept, well meaning individuals, very much a part and parcel of the community.
Our children can gain life long learning experiences from reading to children
that don't get the opportunity to stay home with their parents who are in Head Start and ECAP programs, or sitting with the
elderly and hearing their stories. What about food drives for a local food bank, or doing a baby blanket drive
for a local shelter or hospital.
The more we are out there doing and giving the better the home educators image
will be and the more close knit our communities will be with us. On top of it all our children will learn first hand that
they are very much a part of society (because each of us as individuals collectively make society!), part of their communities
and can stand tall and proud and be effective in the world.
