Born Learning Trail looks to support early education

By Lisa Trigg
The Tribune-Star

TERRE HAUTE June 19, 2009 08:47 pm

— Baby, you were born to learn.
And a new trail in Fairbanks Park will help.
In fact, the Born Learning Trail is aimed at helping parents and caregivers support early education for young children. With simple activities, children can learn through playing hopscotch, counting, identifying shapes and looking at the environment. So now, a trip to the park can be more than just getting pushed in the swings or climbing on the monkey bars.
The Born Learning Trail was officially launched Friday morning during the United Way of the Wabash Valley’s “Day of Action” as a volunteer project.
Among the volunteers were Kylie Walter, Angie Jenkins and Sean Weir. They are summer employees of Duke Energy Wabash River Empowering. Wearing their bright yellow Duke Energy shirts, they got down and dirty planting Black-eyed Susan, Coneflower, Butterfly Bush and other perennials to brighten the trail.
The “trail” follows a wide sidewalk with a series of new signs that outline a learning activity at each station. Adults will see specific ways to create learning games outdoors.
“This reinforces that for young children, learning has a lot to do with experiencing things in the environment. Much more so than sitting at a desk and doing a worksheet,” said Nancy Rogers, co-chair of the Success by 6 Committee for United Way of the Wabash Valley.
It is the goal of Success by 6 to make sure every child in the community is ready to start kindergarten. Much of that readiness includes hands-on interaction with adults, whether through storytime and reading together or through simple projects.
The Born Learning Trail has been a project of the national United Way organization for a few years. When the Success by 6 Committee presented the local project to the Terre Haute Park Board in the spring, the park board quickly got on board with it, Rogers said.
A visit was made to Deming, Collett and Fairbanks parks to consider which site would be better suited for the trail.
“This sidewalk was just perfect for it,” Rogers said Friday morning as volunteers planted colorful perennial flowers around each sign post. “Deming Park has a lot of kids, but the sidewalk was not good for this trail.”
She noted that United Way of the Wabash Valley also plans to install a Born Learning Trail at Brazil’s Forest Park in the near future.
United Way Executive Director Troy Fears helped organize the volunteers, who also hung the Born Learning signs on the wooden supports already erected by the Terre Haute Parks and Recreation Department. The trail has a pleasant overview of the Wabash River, and is adjacent to a playground.
Fears said he was pleased by all of the volunteer support for not only the Born Learning Trail, but the variety of projects throughout the Wabash Valley planned for “Day of Action.”
At Dobbs Park on the city’s east side, a crew from WTWO Channel 2 was relocating large rocks and removing vegetation from an overgrown butterfly garden.
Station Manager Tim Sturgess said helping the United Way gave station employees the opportunity to contribute to the community.
“A lot of the time, people give to the United Way, but they don’t really see and use the benefit of their donation,” Sturgess said. “This way, we get to be a part of the project.”
For Jeremy Allison, a member of Plumbers and Steamfitters Local 157, his volunteer effort at the Habitat for Humanity Re-Store was his way of staying involved in the community on the “Day of Action.”
“We just try to jump in wherever we can and help,” Allison said of union members. “Everything is kind of slow right now, so I’m trying to stay busy.”
At the Head Start headquarters, an assembly line of volunteers organized Success by 6 program packets to be given out to families with young children by various agencies. The activities in the packets promote literacy and encourage adults to read daily to young children.
It is the goal of United Way’s “Day of Action” to advance the common good by focusing on education and health as the building blocks for a good life.
Other agencies that benefited from the organized volunteer effort in the Wabash Valley include the Council on Domestic Abuse, Hamilton Center at Spectrum Industries, KidKare Project in Clinton, Meals on Wheels, Parke and Vermillion County Humane Society, SCARC (Sullivan County Area Rehabilitation Center), Sisters of Providence at the White Violet Center, Terre Haute Children’s Museum, Terre Haute Housing Authority, Terre Haute Family Y, Vigo County 211 (Lifeline) and the Wabash Valley Senior Citizens Center.
For more information about the United Way of the Wabash Valley, or any of its programs and member agencies, call (812) 235-6287.
Lisa Trigg can be reached at (812) 231-4254 or lisa.trigg@tribstar.com.