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7 <br />Continuing our Community's Tradition of Supporting Education <br />Through our many conversations of the past four months, we have learned that our <br />community currently and historically supports education in many important ways. We <br />encourage all the members of our community and their organizations, businesses, associations <br />and neighborhoods to continue to show support and seek creative and inclusive ways to grow <br />that support to the benefit of our public schools, our students and the Greater Orange County <br />community. <br />It has always been an assumption that the community supports the public <br />schools in Orange County. Its sort of like something that you automatically do <br />without thinking. Even as simple as supporting the many fundraisers that the <br />little ones are tasked to do each year. The community embraced the idea of <br />improving school playgrounds and went to work to make it happen in some of <br />our schools. The supportive efforts by the community include providing teacher <br />appreciation days for the teachers and serving as proctors during standardized <br />testing days. Various community civic groups provide scholarships to deserving <br />students. Businesses provide ads to yearbooks for each high school to help offset <br />printing costs for the school yearbooks. In addition, some restaurants give a <br />percentage of customer receipts, on certain days, to support the schools. The <br />Schley Grange donates personal dictionaries to every third grader. The Exchange <br />Club presents a Student of the Month award to a deserving Orange County <br />student, and from that pool of students, a Student of the Year is selected. The <br />Hillsborough Kiwanis Club has a monthly Terrific Kids program in every <br />elementary school in the district to honor good character and hard work. Faith <br />communities are very supportive during the school year providing items that <br />schools specify that would be of great help, from coats to school supplies. Orange <br />Congregations in Missions (OCIM), a local nonprofit, provides volunteer work <br />opportunities for students. In addition, OCIM assists the students, via school <br />social workers, with food, clothes and other emergency assistance during the <br />school year. <br />-- Reverend Sharon S. Freeland, Orange Congregations in Missions <br />ri <br />