Community Partnerships Help Serve Students and Families in Need

Community Partnerships Help Serve Students and Families in Need:  The Story of Eiber Elementary and the Results of Partnership with the Denver Lions

This past Christmas the Denver Lions donated $900 to Eiber Elementary for Christmas presents and food for the students in need.  Our program on March 13 will give us a snapshot of the population and programs at Eiber Elementary and the need those gifts addressed. 

Our speaker writes: 

At Eiber, we believe all students learn at high levels when educators hold high expectations and ensure a safe, structured learning environment that honors diversity, provides varied opportunities for success, and fosters positive relationships through a spirit of collaboration.  We are a Title One Jefferson County Elementary School.  We have 95 percent of our students on free and Reduced Lunch Program.  Our population includes 400 students with 36 homeless families. We are working on developing  partnerships with community members and organizations who would like to help us assist our  families in need. Many of the families at Eiber have parents who work two jobs, some of the families are homeless, they all are struggling and we want to be able to have programs available that can help take some of the pressure off.

After 14 years of being the leader of our School, and more than 22 years in the educational field, our Principal Ms. Bedell,, has one huge  goal when developing these assistance programs: Empower families.

 All these years of experience has shown her a poverty cycle. To help end it, we ask the families in these assistance programs to give back some of their time as volunteers here at the school. This allows the opportunity for them to discover ways to self-advocate and receive guidance. Also,  by volunteering in the school it opens  the door for parents to participate in their student success.

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Cynthia Saunders is a bilingual psychologist graduated with honors from the Universidad Iberoamericana (UNIBE) in Costa Rica with a major in psychology. She is also trained in behavioral therapy (Ellis Institute, New York)

She believes in PREVENTION more than in remediation, and in leading the patient into the "know how" to improve and INVEST in their unique way of coping with their own challenges

She worked with nonprofit organizations as a developer of their programs in the community and raising funds. She has more than 4 years working with community services, building networks between them, volunteers, parents, teachers, business and associations and fellow psychologist and health servers.