Military Mentors
Airmen volunteer time at elementary school
Euchee Creek Elementary School second-grader Austin Rachels pondered the cards in front of him on the table.
"It's easy, everyone knows where that's at," Air Force Airman Jeffery Novak said, as Austin tried to find the match to the hourglass card in the memory game I Spy.
"Yes! I got it," Austin said, flipping over the card.
Novak was one of 15 volunteers from the Air Force's Detachment I, 338, Training Squadron at Euchee Creek on Friday to serve as a mentor for the school's pupils.
"It provides the students with a positive male role model, and it also shows them that learning is fun and that it can happen outside the classroom," Principal Wanda Golosky said.
"It also offers them exposure to people who are from all different parts of the United States - one gentlemen is from Hawaii. We have a lot of students who have very limited experiences. This will be a window to the world they can be a part of."
The airmen will come to the school every other Friday throughout the school year, mentoring small groups of pupils in each grade and eating lunch with them.
"I think they're cool," second-grader Melissa Stroman said. "I want to be in the military, too."
But the airmen are doing more than entertaining the children. Using materials purchased by the school's Parent Teacher Organization, the lessons they are teaching the children seek to challenge their minds and complement the classroom curriculum.
"It's all focused around education, not just sitting around talking to them. The materials they are using are distinctively different than the classroom materials, so it wouldn't just be the same old thing," Golosky said.
It's a mutually beneficial relationship, Airman First Class Ryan German said.
"It's something different than what we are doing back at the base," he said. "We get to hang around with the kids and have a fun time, and it's helping kids."