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Community Corner

Sharing Community Resources Helps Children Learn

The value of sharing resources and space in Severna Park is a learning tool for the young and helps to raise good citizens.

 As soon as we are in relationship with either a sibling or a friend, we are taught to share.  We tell our children that it is kind and an act of friendship to offer others some of what we have, and to not be selfish.  This is often a hard lesson to learn; and even more difficult when we attempt to teach them that sharing should include strangers as well as friends or family members.

 Children learn best when they can observe their parents and other adults “practicing what they preach.”  In Severna Park there are many opportunities for us to share resources with each other and the more we do so with a sense of hospitality, the more we build community and teach that lesson on sharing.

 Recently the Tyler Heights Elementary School from Annapolis came to to remember and celebrate the life of their former principal,.  The church shared their facility while parishioners and community members supported them through volunteer efforts and by their presence.  The pastor from Casa de Benediciones, an Hispanic congregation in Severna Park, came with his wife, Maria, and daughter, Kathy, and assisted in the facilitation of this service of closure for the children and their parents.

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 Severna Park High School shares their athletic field with the Green Hornets.  Severn School has allowed use of their gymnasium for adolescent programs, and the Severna Park Community Center offers after-school care and programming for SP Middle School students.  (SPAN) is housed in a facility behind Our Shepherd Lutheran Church. 

These are just some of the visible acts of sharing in our midst.  We only need to look at the Patch calendar to find many invitations for public events and opportunities to interface with unmet friends in this community.

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 Sharing space is obviously much deeper than simply physical property.  It is a mindset that involves an openness to learning and serving.  It involves a willingness to evaluate ones resources and wonder about how they might benefit the larger community.  Severna Park Patch offers just such an opportunity to find out how we can participate.  This column would like to hear about shared resources and their impact on your life in this community.

Editor's Note: Email nreynolds@woodschurch.org or put a comment in on the Patch activity stream on the homepage.

 

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