a collaborative effort of Dane County Parent Council and the Northport Community, originally conceived to serve as 'wrap-around' child care for Head Start families, it has expanded to serve 15 children.
Northport resident, Cindy Isbell, has faithfully organized and prepared a weekly meal in the Northport Community Center for the past two years. Food supplies are donated by Community Action Coalition and Lakeview Lutheran Church.
youth from the Packer community may participate in three Girl Scout Troops: Brownies, Juniors, and Cadets. The girls recently completed their first cookie sale and have seven boxes left....anybody want Girl Scout cookies? e-mail: packer@mailbag.com
Weekly, children gather to hear a gospel message, sing songs, play games, and eat snacks in an club led by volunteers of Child Evangelism Fellowship. Mojgan Hall teaches the Packer children, assisted by Pat Schon and Packer resident Debra Boyd. Marie Chavez and her son Matt teach the Northport children.
Public Health Nurse:
The Public Heatlh Nurse, Jill Innes is available for Northport and Packer residents in the management offices on alternating Fridays. She writes a monthly column in the neighborhood newsletters and does health screening, answers questions, and provides follow up on community health concerns. The WebMaster is particularily grateful for the attention given to his injured foot. :)
the original item, Ellen McGaughey of MMSD Instructional Technologies, began coming to the Northport and Packer community centers with a laptop computer to work with Title One children on reading skills, reading a story and then helping the children work cooperatively in the Bailey's Book House software program. The Packer Book House children recently presented a play, based on the book "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom", with Packer manager Derrick Jones playing a coconut tree, as children, playing alphabet letters, climbed to the top and toppled him....
each summer youth K-8 are offered educational summer activities in a community day camp experience. Last summer, the youth completed life-sized anatomical models (did you know some very short children have longer tibias than taller children?), read aloud "The Indian in the Cupboard", by Carol Ryie Banks and attended the movie, participated in horticultural experiences at Olbrich Gardens, and spent a week swimming, canoeing, hiking, and enjoying campfires at the Camp Tamarack campground.
Packer youth will be featured in an episode of the children's hit television show "Get Real" in September of 1996. The show will air on Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Iowa, and Ohio PBS stations. The program will feature the Packer Children's Garden, a highlight of the summer youth programs. Children designed, planted, and cared for a small vegetable garden. Near an undeveloped area of the city, the children once surprised a white-tailed deer munching brocolli, found hidden raspberry and mulberry crops in the woods, and stood inside a hollow tree to look up at the sky....without leaving the city!