Village benefits from tourist’s friendship
One of the traditional complaints about cruise tourism is that visitors are here such a short time that they barely have a chance to acquire even the most superficial understanding of the place they are visiting. That may be true, but today News 5’s Jacqueline Woods found a noteworthy exception.
Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
When most tourists pass though Frank’s Eddy Village, they hardly give it a second thought. But for one family it was different. Last November Jack and Penny McDonald paused long enough to not only visit the community, but to bond with its residents. This week the McDonalds returned to the village accompanied by a significant donation of books and educational materials for the children of Frank’s Eddy Government School.
Ann Zuniga, Principal, Frank’s Eddy Government School
“We received teacher?s resources, a lot of storybooks for the children. We have some big books that the infants can use; we also have workbooks in mathematics, language arts that we can use in the classroom.”
“Especially since they are predominantly Spanish speaking, but we already have them reading, and at home most of them do not have any reading material, so these books will be of great help. We will be lending them out of them to take home so that they can practice their reading. And also in the classroom, usually we have specific times that we give them to just sit and read and I can see these books being very, very helpful to them.”
Penny McDonald, who is an assistant professor of Biology at Brevard Community College in Florida, says it took a lot of work, but was very pleased with the response to a one-month book and school supply drive she organised in her area.
Penny McDonald, Donor
“During that time we collected sixty-five boxes of books. I got textbooks and library books and storybooks. We also got some bookshelves, we got the overhead projector donated–my college where I work said we wanted to do something.”
…and judging by the reaction of the children, these students should have little difficulty learning to make reading a lifelong habit. Jacqueline Woods reporting for News 5.
later this year the children of Frank’s Eddy Primary School and the students of Sea Park Elementary in Florida will start exchanging letters through a pen pal programme.
