College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
Language and Literacy Education, College of Education
College of Family and Consumer Sciences
Oasis Católico Santa Rafaela
First Book
Office of International Public Service and Outreach

	Giving books is a great way to foster a love of reading for the students. Over five days in the summer of 2005, some of the children from Pinewoods Estates attended the first Oasis Environmental Summer Camp. Latino children appreciate new reading material from the First Book Award. UGA students read to Latino children in Pinewoods Estates during the Fall semester 2005.

Since January 2003, UGA students from the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, the College of Education, and the College of Family and Consumer Sciences have participated in the tutorial program for Latino elementary and middle school children at the Oasis Católico Santa Rafaela Mission in the Pinewoods Estates North trailer park in north Athens. Pinewoods Estates is home to 225 low-income Hispanic families. UGA students are present Monday through Thursday afternoons from 3:30 to 5:00 to help students with their homework and enrichment activities if the student's homework is complete. Since 2003 more than 200 UGA students have participated in the tutoring program at the Oasis Católico.

During the spring semester of 2005, the Office of International Public Service and Outreach and the Department of Language and Literacy Education in the College of Education worked to add another facet to the tutorial program at Pinewoods Estates. The Office of International Public Service and Outreach was given the First Book Award from First Book, a national non-profit organization whose mission is "to give children from low-income families the opportunity to read and own their first new books." On May 05, 2005 at a celebration of the completion of the spring semester tutorial program, forty First Books were distributed to the students. Giving books is a great way to foster a love of reading for the students. Additional books were donated to the Oasis tutorial program library in the summer of 2005.

Books were also donated to Project Safe, a shelter for women and children who are and have been victims of domestic violence. In 2004 Project Safe sheltered 198 women and children.

Over five days in the summer of 2005, some of the children from Pinewoods Estates attended the first Oasis Environmental Summer Camp. Each day students participated in different activities focused around reading and learning about various plants and the environment. The camp ended with a day-long trip to the State Botanical Gardens in Athens with various sessions planned such as the dissection of a pitcher plant, time with microscopes, and lessons on stream ecology. Children who completed the program were given books from the First Book Award.

On February 14, 2006, a First Book donation of 20 books was made to the Library Community Learning Center in Pinewoods Estates. The Library Community Learning Center is run through the Athens Clarke County Regional Library System and located adjacent to the Oasis Católico Tutorial Program. Future plans include expanding the tutorial program to the point where the student to tutor ratio is 1:1 along with a continuation of First Book donations to children from Pinewoods Estates who participate in the program each semester. Further donations of story books, reference books, and atlases will be made to the Library Community Learning Center and the Oasis Tutorial program.

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	• IPSO Outreach Initiatives