Crown Point Elementary

Left: Crown Point Elementary Vice Principal, Ms. Carr, with Lynn Iseman Right: Donated classroom items from Church of Our Saviour

Our Saviour Knocks It Out of the Park for Crown Point Elementary!

By Kerry Baldwin

For Lynn Iseman and team, the Crown Point Elementary school is near and dear to their heart. The burgeoning ministry launched about a year before COVID hit, when their well-laid plans to support the school were derailed.

“It was frustrating. We were having so much fun with the school and doing great things and then everything practically stopped,” said Lynn. Stopped was the need to read to students live, to assemble donated supplies for the classrooms, and to interact with the teachers.

“We started a writing campaign during COVID where we wrote letters of encouragement to our designated teachers to let them know we know how hard their jobs can be at times and that we are keeping them in our thoughts and prayers. We have been told many times by different teachers how much these notes have meant to them over those past two years.”

Once COVID hit, and the schools closed for a lengthy period of time, it was challenging for ministries, like the ones at Our Saviour and other churches in the area, to support Crown Point Elementary. The opportunities to serve dried up and the school’s leadership was understandably focused on other priorities.

But things have changed now that the school is fully re-opened and the administration has had time to breathe. Ms. Carr, Vice Principal at Crown Point, expressed her gratitude with the folks at Church of Our Saviour. ‘We are so grateful for everything that the folks at Our Saviour have provided.” This especially includes the time spent reading to the kids.

Along with providing classroom supplies and writing letters to teachers, a primary mission for Our Saviour’s Crown Point Elementary team is to read with the kids. Our Saviour has been chosen out of all the other churches who provide support to Crown Point, to kick off a special reading initiative.

Crown Point is a Title 1 school as well as an ESOL school. This means that many of the kids, who come from lower socio-economic backgrounds, are not proficient in English and need extra help learning to read. Sadly, many of these children also have an unstable family life or live with all non-English speakers at home, limiting their ability to learn.

Every Thursday morning, a group gathers for 20 minutes to either read to a child or help them read out loud. “This program reinforces that reading is important. We are a new face that shows support and compassion for these kids and helps them reach their reading goals. We work with grades K - 2 and we can tell it means so much to them,” said Lynn.

Lynn recently delivered some supplies to the school, donated by the Our Saviour congregation. “Both the teachers and the administrators pay for supplies out of their own pockets for much of the year. The smiles on the faces of the staff when I showed up with our generous supply of donations were so heart-warming! They are all so truly grateful for you!”

For Vice Principal Carr, she affirmed: “The Crown Point Elementary School Ministry is so important to the school on many levels. Because we are a Title 1 school, the supplies you have donated mean so much to the faculty and administration.”

A new initiative for the teachers at Crown Point involves providing snacks for the teachers once a quarter on a Wednesday when they have early release of the students and conduct their meetings with the administration.

And how does Lynn feel now that the ministry is now back in full swing? “Sharing our love with the teachers is as equally important as it is with the students. God is doing great work here at Crown Point!”

Kudos to the Our Saviour Crown Point Ministry! (Lynn, Mara, Jean, Diane, Melinda, Jane, Deb, Nancy, and new members Joe and Suzi!) We’re so thrilled that you are sharing the light and love of God with our neighboring community and treating their children as our own!

If you would like to learn more how you can help out the ministry at Crown Point Elementary, contact Lynn Iseman at lynniseman@yahoo.com. The team is always grateful for folks who can spend 20 minutes on a Thursday morning reading to the kids, fill in for other weekday guest reading spots, write inspiring letters of appreciation to the teachers and, of course, donate needed supplies to the classrooms!