All For The Kids

BY STEPHANIE GIBSON LEPORE

When Valerie Agee’s fourth-grade students first returned to school full-time after Covid, for the 2021-2022 academic year, she noticed something. “Many of my students were lacking social and emotional skills and also access to basic needs— hygiene products, food, etc. It was a rough year,” she says. Around the same time, she received an email from the JeffCoEd Foundation, which is sent to staff members each year so they can apply for grants to fund classroom needs. “I applied for a Basic Needs Grant,” says Valerie. “I wanted to cover hygiene products, snacks, and even social/ emotional lessons for kids to learn to deal with their feelings in a healthy way.” She envisioned a calm, happy space for students to learn and also quietly pick up any items they may need at home. Then, Valerie got back to teaching. It was the following April in 2022 when she learned she had received her grant, with $500 awarded for creation of an emotional resource room at Irondale Community School .

“I had to wait to implement my ideas until

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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 23 the next school year,” she says. In the meantime, Heidi Marimberga of Heidi’s Kids came to Valerie’s school to conduct a program. “I showed her the room I had in mind, which is next to my classroom, and I shared my vision for the space and the grant money.” As Valerie explained the need for a space where kids could self-regulate, sort out conflicts, and privately visit a “care closet,” Heidi’s wheels started spinning, too. “I set up an Amazon list and shared it with Heidi. I figured I would get the room going and add to it as I could, thinking it would be a long process. But Heidi ran with it!”

After meeting with her board, who loved and immediately approved the project, Heidi called on her community connections to come in and get the emotional resource room ready this past July in time for the start of the 2023-2024 school year this month. “Funding for the project was raised at the First Responders Cornhole Tournament hosted by the Irondale Police Department,” says Heidi. “SouthEastern Construction Partners in Pelham donated the labor and supplies, including paint, for the build-out, and Grants Mill Family Dentistry donated 100 toothbrushes, toothpaste, and floss.” In addition, The Church at Grants Mill provided snacks and other items to stock the food closet, and the Graham family supplied clothes for the closet, as well.

Now, says Heidi, “This room allows children direct daily access to necessary resources, like clothes and shoes, food, school supplies, and hygiene items.” Children will also have the

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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 24 opportunity to feel safe, heard, and comfortable at school, says Valerie. “If they need to talk, they know there’s a place for them and that the school cares.” She also notes there are no exclusions: “All the teachers can use the space. It’s so beautiful—I can’t explain how soothing the bright yellow-orange walls are, but it’s just a happy, welcoming, calming atmosphere.” Valerie’s sister, Marlena McBride, is a local artist who painted the mural in the classroom. “Hopefully the space is somewhere where anxiety can lesson, students can speak affirmations in the mirror, cool off as needed, and it can also serve as an extended space for our school counselor, who hosts small groups each school year.”

“Valerie really advocated for this room for her school,” says Heidi. “We will work in partnership with mentors and counselors at school to assess the resource needs for the students and restock bi-monthly.” Heidi also facilitated the opening of a similar space at Robinson Elementary within the Birmingham City Schools system, and hopefully there are more to come.

Valerie’s ideas are still brewing, too. “I started joking that kids might misbehave just so they can go to the resource room,” she says. “We might need to create a reward room now!”