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Adrian College and Cambios vie for award  

A partnership between Adrian College and Cambios is one of four finalists for the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Partnership for Campus-Community Collaboration.

Rosalynn Carter, former first lady, will announce the winner of the $10,000 award on June 18 at the annual Governor’s Service Awards Dinner at the Dearborn Hyatt.

The award recognizes college campuses and community organizations that work together in exceptional ways to improve people’s lives and teach college students the importance of community service. This would be the first time it has been awarded in Michigan since it was created at Georgia State University in 2000.

Adrian College/Cambios, Inc. Project R.E.A.D. (Reading to Eliminate All Discrimination): Volunteers read one book in local elementary classrooms each week and discuss the themes of the book with the students. Above, Adrian College students and Cambios President Maher Mualla (an Adrian College professor) present a diversity quilt to a local elementary school.

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The mission of Cambios is to celebrate diversity and eliminate all forms of discrimination by providing programs and resources to the community. The goal of the partnership with Adrian College is to assist with the implementation of R.E.A.D. (Reading to End All Discrimination), a program that takes volunteer readers into elementary classrooms to read and discuss multicultural literature.

A 2003 study by Adrian College faculty found that benefits of R.E.A.D. to children included improved sense of self identity, less frequent discriminatory behaviors, and greater appreciation of differences, especially language differences.

After hearing “Pepita Talks Twice,” a third grade student told his volunteer reader, “My dad says that you can’t trust Mexicans, but the ones in your stories seem nice.  I wish I knew some.”

Cambios has donated 54 books to each elementary school in the county, a total of 1,350 books with a retail value of over $20,000. Of school districts in the county, 85 percent use R.E.A.D. in some capacity. In addition to other volunteers, over 50 Adrian College students and staff have served as readers.

For more on the Carter Award, go to www.micampuscompact.org or www.cambios.org.