Supporters of the Woodlan kindergarten-through-12th-grade campus project turned in more petition packets than their opponents by Tuesday’s deadline, according to voter registration officials.Cynthia Helmkamp’s students come to Anthis Career Center every day in pursuit of a high school diploma. And some do so while putting a history of living in Thai refugee camps behind them.
Helmkamp will act as an emissary this summer between her students and their relatives who still live in such camps. She’ll bring the families a scrapbook filled with pictures and writings by her students and will return with anything the families want to send to the United States.
This monthlong trip is possible through an $8,000 Teacher Creativity Fellowship from the Lilly Endowment. Helmkamp is among 120 Indiana educators, including nine from northeast Indiana, who received the money to allow them to pursue subjects that interest them and take a rejuvenating trip meant to make them better teachers.
“It really helps me understand my students more,” said Helmkamp, who is traveling with a teacher friend from Carmel who also received a grant. “This grant is to get away and renew yourself, and I love to travel, and this is a great way for me to get away and get closer to my students at the same time.”
Lilly Endowment is a private philanthropic organization based in Indianapolis and founded in 1937. Lilly fellowships will allow northeast Indiana teachers to travel to Washington, D.C., Mexico and Poland among other activities this summer.
Janice Reynolds, music teacher at Northwest and Monmouth elementary schools in North Adams Community Schools, will visit Germany to learn about organ grinders. Her father grew up near Peru and worked part time at the circus, so Reynolds said she was exposed to organ grinders through him.
“I always thought they were kind of cool,” Reynolds said.
Reynolds will visit two factories in Germany that make the organs by hand. She wants to buy one but isn’t sure how much they cost. She’ll also visit a former exchange student she taught who is from Germany.
Helmkamp has applied for Lilly fellowships in the past, but this is the first one she has won. On her trip to Thailand, she plans to ride elephants into the jungle and stay in a village to learn how their colorful textiles are made.
She’ll also visit a textile shop and a tribal museum with a large collection of textiles.
When she returns, Helmkamp will get a group of her female students to sew fabric into wrap skirts that Burmese girls wear.
