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Smiles and prizes: Warren kids appear ready to return to school
Event helps Warren students prepare for start of school year
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
The smiles on the faces of Leland Tennant and brothers Jamarion Brown and Robert Guerry seemed to say that they are happy to be getting ready to head back to school Tuesday.
Leland, 7, shook hands with “Officer Mike” Currington as he traveled through a packed Courthouse Square Wednesday with his family, looking up with wonder at the big, uniformed man.
Currington, a Warren police officer and school resource officer at Warren G. Harding High School, doesn’t see little kids like Leland much when the school year starts, but Currington still ended his conversation with Leland with a “See you next week.”
All over the downtown park by the Trumbull County Courthouse, parents, children, teachers and others mingled near tables manned by organizations offering free items and prizes, such as lip balm, pencils, pens, pencil sharpeners, book marks, erasers, pencil pouches and backpacks while the high school majorettes performed nearby.
“They’re pretty excited to go back to school. They’re counting down the days,” said Tiana Johnson, mother of Jamarion and Robert as the boys spun a “Wheel-Of-Fortune” wheel and received a prize from the United Way of Trumbull County.
There also were bigger prizes, including bicycles and a book bag stuffed with school supplies being won through raffles.
“The boys won a bike last year. My daughters both won book bags,” Johnson said of Warren schools’ seventh annual Back to School Celebration.
Lauren Thorp, project director of the Alliance For Substance Abuse Prevention, who worked her organization’s table of freebies, said Warren’s event is unique in her experience.
“I haven’t heard any other community doing this,” she said.
Superintendent Steve Chiaro offered that other districts do events leading up to the start of school, but: “This works for Warren.”
When asked for the “scientific” reasons for such an event, he said it can help kids who might have the “back to school jitters” by showing them that their teachers, who attend the event on their own time, “want to be here,” and it’s just “folks having a good time.”
Mayor Doug Franklin, who strolled through the gathering dressed in summer attire on the warm summer day, said: “I just wish they had it when I was in school. It sets a positive tone for the upcoming school year.”
Among the items the ASAP Coalition was giving out was a nifty pen and highlighter combo that gives the phone number to use for the Crisis Text Line, which Thorp says is useful if a teen is in need of help. (Text 4hope to 741741).
Teens might be more inclined to reach out through a text message, more so than making a phone call, Thorp suggested.
August has been a rough month for drug overdoses in Trumbull County, Thorp said, adding, “It’s why we feel outreach is important” at events like this.
ASAP also was giving out a free pamphlet for parents called “Keeping Your Kids Drug Free.”
Chantle Field of Warren, who brought her five children, age 2 to 10, to the event, said she appreciated the free lunch but said her kids “really love coming out to see their teachers. They said, ‘Hurray for school.’ They’ve been very excited for it.”