After School Program at Willow Glen Apartments Keeps Students Actively Learning and Creating

SACRAMENTO, CA - Since the start of the school year, students from Willow Glen Apartments have been attending the community's after school program hosted by their new PSCDC Resident Services Coordinator, Lupe Perez-Samaniego. Willow Glen's after school program, designed to help students get one-on-one attention and assistance in homework, has always been a great opportunity for students to continue learning and creating.

"Our primary goal each day is to focus on school homework and assignments," Lupe declares. "The focus of the program is for the students to receive help and tutoring with academics for an hour. The last thirty minutes of a session, when they are finished with studying, is dedicated to arts and crafts projects or academic computer games. The students enjoy the computer games the most, but they also like picking out books from our small community library to read."

Beyond the usual classroom subjects, this month Lupe spent a day teaching her students about the importance of Black History month.

"I focused on teaching the students about Black History month - who Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was, and why the US celebrates his birthday as a national holiday. The students, most being immigrants from Afghanistan and Pakistan, were not really aware of the impact he had on our country's civil rights or Black history. It was definitely a learning day for them."

Three days prior to Valentine's Day, Lupe and her students prepared individual Valentine's Day cards to share with their families. Each student worked diligently to design their cards using construction paper, paint, markers, felt, and their creativity. Throughout February, each student can choose to create, paint, and color their own spring-themed decorations to take home and show to their families.

The after school program provides kids a safe place to get together after school, make new friends with neighbors, and celebrate each other's birthdays. Cake4Kids, a compassionate group of volunteers baking and delivering free cakes, brownies, and cookies for underserved children, delivered their first Willow Glen Apartments birthday cake for the year. Sadeed, who just turned 10, received a free cake that he shared with his fellow students and friends. Cake4Kids has been an existing resource for the Willow Glen community for quite some time; previous Resident Services Coordinators have been receiving donations from them for various events and children's birthdays. Cake4Kids has always been a bright spot to many of our residents lives throughout our properties and the community is excited to reconnect with them to celebrate even more birthday parties this year!