GREENFIELD — An Eastern Hancock Elementary School teacher was recognized recently for spearheading a special project within her school that aimed to help Hancock County’s children in need.
The East Central Indiana chapter of Court-Appointed Special Advocates gave fourth-grade teacher Debbie Froman the Judge Jack L. Brinkman Award, an honor that recognizes a community member who makes a difference in the lives of children in their community.
Froman was nominated for the award because of a service-learning project she led fourth-graders at Eastern Hancock in completing last school year.
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She and the students made 100 handmade fleece blankets to be given to area foster children.
The blankets were given to Bag Ladies Quilt Club, a Hancock County volunteer organization whose mission is to provide kids blankets as they are removed from their homes and placed in foster care. Some were also donated to local police department officers who carried the blankets in their cars to give children a bit of comfort in times of trauma.
The Judge Jack L. Brinkman Award is named for the Madison County judge who brought the Court-Appointed Special Advocates, or CASA, program to east central Indiana in 1987; it expanded to include Hancock County in 2004. The organization now serves some 200 local children each year.
The CASA program utilizes volunteers to evaluate the needs of children who are tangled up in various court cases, often ones in which their parents have been accused of abuse or neglect. The advocate serves as the eyes and ears of a judge, looking into a child’s living situation, and the voice of the child in the courtroom.
Each fall, leaders of the county’s chapter of the advocate program honor those who work toward bettering the lives of local kids, crowning them champions of children.
Froman said she was honored and humbled to have been recognized by the organization.
The project started as a way to teach kids the importance of giving to those less fortunate, Froman said. The students, their families and many other staff members really bought into the idea, she said.
As part of their goal to produce well-rounded students Eastern Hancock teachers are often challenged to incorporate such life lessons into their daily classroom curriculum, Froman said. Service-learning projects are a great way of doing that, she said.
The students spent about an hour a week for about a month making the blankets, she said. They collected money to purchase supplies, bought hundreds of yards of fleece, then pieced together the fabric, tying the ends tight to make a comfy throw. And along the way, they had conversations about who the blankets might help one day, she said.
Froman hopes to complete the project again with this school years’ batch of fourth-graders, she said. She’s make plans to make blankets soon after Christmas.