Elementary School Project

The congregation collaborated with the administration of a local inner city school. Congregants tutored students, others provided supplies and money for field trips, while others gave their time during after school projects.

Temple Gates of Heaven
853 Ashmore Avenue
Schenectady, New York 12309
(518) 374-8173
www.cgoh.org
 

In 1983 the Social Action Committee of the Temple Gates of Heaven in Schenectady, NY, partnered with the Pleasant Valley Elementary School, an inner-city school with a majority-minority student population comprised primarily of Latinos and African Americans. Pleasant Valley Elementary serviced a low-income community and students faced considerable obstacles to education both inside and outside of the school. The Social Action Committee at Gates of Heaven recognized an opportunity to work with the administrators at Pleasant Valley to enhance educational opportunities in several key ways.

First, close collaboration between the Temple’s volunteers and the school administration and faculty resulted in the development of a corps of mentors and tutors. Teachers would identify students needing individualized assistance and would then request that mentors be assigned to those students. Over the first seven years of the project, 25 members of the congregation tutored students in core subject areas for one to four hours weekly. Some of the congregation tutors formed such close mentor-mentee bonds with their students that they continued to work with them as the students progressed from one grade level to the next.

Temple Gates of Heaven also provided funding and support for new curricular programs, field trips, and supplies at Pleasant Valley Elementary. One congregation member donated a dollar for each book read by the students up to the total of one thousand dollars. That sum was then used to purchase new books for the school library. Another member of the congregation, a retired professor of physics at the state university in Albany, provided students with engaging and educational scientific experiments. Children becoming Bar/Bat Mitzvah were asked that money and gifts be donated to Pleasant Valley when possible. In addition, a box was placed in the lobby of the Temple to collect donations of clothing, games, and supplies for the Pleasant Valley students.

A special Friday night service at Temple Gates of Heaven was devoted to this project and a reception was held to honor the school’s teachers and mentors. The administration of Pleasant Valley Elementary also expressed its appreciation for the partnership on several occasions.