Community Service Grant Check-In: Kristin Hancock, Third Grade

Last year, thanks to the generous support of Joe and Sandra Slaughter, our Community Service Grant program was able to award $2000 of grants to teachers for projects that allowed students to better their community.

Kristin Hancock, a third grade teacher at GW Carver Montessori IPS #871, shares her classroom's experience with their grant for books to read to residents at Crestwood Village West Assisted Living Facility.

My grant request of $375 was to purchase partner reading books for my classroom to use during our visits to Crestwood Village West. Our classroom participates in a partnership with Crestwood called Best Friends. Each month we travel to Crestwood to meet with our friends. We talk, play games, do work and read together. The books that we were so fortunate to receive are wonderful stories by Mary Ann Hoberman. They are intended to be read together with an adult and a child. Each page has the story written in two colors: one color for the adult to read, followed by an easier part in a different color for the child to read.

We have now taken two sets of the books to Crestwood, one in January and one in February. The first month we took the books, everyone was so excited! The colorful illustrations and wonderful text was a big hit! 

The Crestwood residents loved the books! Not only were they excited about reading with the children, they enjoyed the content of the books. The first books we took were the books of fables. Many of these are classics such as “The Lion and the Mouse”. These were stories that were familiar to the residents and they enjoyed talking with our kids about the morals of the stories. The following month we took fairy tale stories and they were also well received. These stories were new to many of the children and the residents had a hard time believing that our children had never heard some of the classic stories or only knew them from movies.

We will continue to use these lovely books as we meet with our friends each month. I have some plans for some extension activities and crafts to go along with them. I was also able to share with another classroom who also participates in the Best Friends program. They took a set of books with them on their visit last month.

This generous grant has helped us provide wonderful reading materials for my students. Books that can be enjoyed by two generations and bridge a gap between them. These books will be enjoyed this year and for many years to come. My most sincere thanks for making this possible!


Learn more about all of our 2015 Community Service Grant winners here.

On May 1, our 2016 Community Grant Service application opens. Teachers can learn more here.