By: David Dancy
May 3rd 2016 student participants from The Study Buddy Club and senior Volunteers from the West Side Senior Center will collaborate for the first ever ‘Cursive n’ Crafts tutoring session.For The Good Inc., the non-profit organization behind the Study Buddy Club, has joined forces with WSSC for this historical one of a kind program.
Why Cursive? “It’s really simple,” said the CEO of FTG Cassandra Harris-Lockwood, “Last summer we had a group of kids from Oneida County Summer Youth Program that were tasked with addressing envelopes by hand.” Offering a merciful assessment she added, “Their writing was horrible. It was over-sized and sloppy with no refinement. You could tell these kids had not ever been taught penmanship. How do you enter adulthood without that element of refinement? ”
The importance of good penmanship is debatable in an age of keyboards and cursive fonts. There are adults who have never been taught the finer points of good penmanship. This has created a challenge for people that do thinks it’s important. An entire generation that has lost the ability to read or write what is quickly becoming a lost art.
One group that will always appreciate a well written letter is the elderly. A dwindling population that can provide valuable instruction for a growing number of kids that can’t do what they can. Enter the inter-generational program of cursive n crafts.
Why Crafts? “The kids need to find ways to raise money for the things they want to do other than sell candy. They want to take a trip to NYC the way Study Buddies once did when financial times weren’t so tough. So they learn to earn their way.
“I designed a high quality trivet, or hot plate, made out of wine corks. I have suffered through many bottles of wine to provide the needed corks. These trivets will be the first item they build. The seniors have some ideas as well. It is a recycled product that can be made easily using inexpensive and simple to find materials. And it beats sitting fiddling with their phones all afternoon.”
