The second Calvin Community Partnership Celebration took place on April 29, 2003, at Alternative Directions, 1725 S. Division SE, the home of the Calvin @ Burton Heights Partnership Center. Community Partnership Awards were presented to the following people (click here to see pictures of the event):

Academically Based Service Learning Partnership:

Art Professor Jo-Ann Van Reeuwyk's Art Education 215 students worked with Grand Rapids Art Museum (GRAM). They designed and taught art lessons at several area public schools of behalf of the art museum. Teams of students also taught a thematic art lesson at GRAM on selected Saturday mornings and led Gallery Games which they created for children and their families at Saturday AM's at GRAM.

Faculty involvement in community:

Calvin science professor David DeHeer has collaborated the past few years with the Kent County Association for Gifted and Talented, setting up a summer science program for gifted and talented middle schoolers that is taught by Calvin professor Larry Louters with assistance from Calvin science majors. This experience has opened the eyes of group of parents and students to see Calvin as an option for higher education that is competitive with Ivy League colleges and universities.

Staff connections to community:

Martha "Heidi" Zophy has been an exceptionally helpful community partner who has connected many Calvin students, staff and alumni to early readers at Ottawa Montessori Elementary School through the HOSTS (Helping One Student To Succeed) program.

Students:

The Noordewier-VanderWerp residence hall partnership, coordinated by sophomore Laura Borths, provides help to the after-school program at Camelot Woods Apartments, which is run by CampFire employee Shaneka Guyton. Junior Andrew Ippel, coordinator of placements for education majors who need practical experience in schools, ran the after-school science program at Buchanan Elementary, where Roberto Garcia is principal. And Hilary Thege, a sociology student of Prof. Fred DeJong, has been applying her research skills at Criminal Justice Chaplaincy.

2003 Agent of Renewal Award

Sr. Maureen Geary, OP, of the Dominican order, is a passionate activist for social justice, serves on a "Call to Renewal" Urban Sprawl Action Group and in that capacity has taken with many Calvin faculty and classes on guided urban sprawl tours.

Calvin's Community Partnership Team also thanked Project Neighborhood 'retiring' mentors Arik and Marie Dershem - Peniel House, Mark and Deone Quist - Koinonia House, and Scott and Karen McFarlane - Harambee House. Each of these couples, as well as their children, contributed much to the lives of Calvin students who've lived in the homes, as well as to churches and residents in the neighborhoods in which the houses are located.