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The Mighty Writers El Futuro Kennett classroom. (Submitted by Yakquelin Garduno)<\/p>\nMighty Writers El Futuro Kennett located at 121 Willow St, Toughkenamon, PA is going strong after its beginnings in 2019. An extension of a Philadelphia parent organization, they provide a bright and cheerful space where kids of all ages attend bilingual after-school writing workshops and receive individual help with homework along with a myriad of other programming.<\/p>\n
The Mighty Writers El Futuro Kennett classroom. (Submitted by Yakquelin Garduno)<\/p>\n
In an interview with Yakquelin Garduno, Senior Director of Mighty Writers El Futuro Kennett for the past two years, one leaves being impressed with how dynamically this organization is responding to the many needs of the Hispanic community wholistically.<\/p>\n
Even though their primary activity is after-school writing workshops, they quickly learned that responding to basic needs of food and clothing was needed to create a sense of security and stability for families of the children.<\/p>\n
They opened a client-choice food pantry where families may come weekly to receive donations of fruit, vegetables, meat, dairy and more. \u201cThe Hispanic culture likes to cook. They start with whole foods and aren\u2019t familiar with serving food to their families from canned goods,\u201d Yakquelin said. She expresses gratitude for the refrigerator\/freezer and shelves that the Chester County Food Bank has donated and for their weekly delivery of healthy foods.<\/p>\n
School has started, so the after-school programing will begin on September 8th\u00a0when elementary level students learn how to express themselves in writing in their native language as well as English.\u00a0\u00a0They also create artistic projects that pay tribute to their Latino heritage. And, during this, they are taught social-emotional skills like mindfulness and empathy.<\/p>\n
They will return to a \u201cMommy and Me\u201d programing on Tuesday afternoons from 2 to 3:00pm when mothers support each other around parenting and discuss healthy parenting practices.<\/p>\n
They offer a 5-week College Prep Program for Hispanic students from 9th\u00a0grade to senior. Yakquelin said that they stay connected with Kennett and Avon Grove School District\u2019s college prep programs and believe that Mighty Writers fills a niche through their short-term introductions to college for students. The students have parents who did not attend college, so this is a whole new world to explore.<\/p>\n
Yakquelin said they started to notice 13\u201319-year-old boys hanging out in the neighborhood and not in school. They work with Migrant Education to enroll the students and last year found out that the students wanted to learn English. They created the \u201cMighty Teens Program\u201d and are teaching English along with programs related to mental health and career development.<\/p>\n
Another extension of attending to the student\u2019s future is the introduction to Trades. They hold a 5-week course to help students see the many possibilities for learning a craft that is in demand, leading to future employment with a sustainable salary.<\/p>\n
One can see that Mighty Writers is embracing the whole child and are offering resources that will help each child become contributing citizens.<\/p>\n
Yakquelin said, \u201cI lived in this very neighborhood of Mighty Writers when I was a child so have the life experience these students are going through. I know how easy it is to get off track, so I am happy to be a part of offering alternatives and ways to reach one\u2019s potential. It is self-gratifying to see the progress the students make in a short period of time and how much their families want their children to succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Story of Kennett \u2013 Shaping the future one child at a time\u201d Joan Holliday and Bob George\u2019s book on Kennett may be purchased on Amazon and at the Mushroom Cap. You may contact Joan at:\u00a0dochollisv@aol.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mighty Writers El Futuro Kennett located at 121 Willow St, Toughkenamon, PA is going strong after its beginnings…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":266321,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,728,1269,16837,1448,2830,1311,16748,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-266320","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-local-news","10":"tag-opinion","11":"tag-opinion-columnists","12":"tag-pa","13":"tag-pennsylvania","14":"tag-philadelphia","15":"tag-top-stories-dln","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-united-states-of-america","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115292905643015879","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}