During the day, the teachers and staff at Holt Crossing Intermediate School educate their fifth- and sixth-grade students.
On the evening of April 5, the school served as an educational resource for families.
Holt Crossing held a community-resource rally that evening, with representatives from about 30 central Ohio agencies on hand to answer questions and provide information about their services.
"There will be programs held to provide information and assistance for specific groups, like parents of gifted and talented students, or families of special-needs students," said T.J. Budy, a fifth-grade science and literacy teacher at Holt who coordinated the effort to organize the resource rally.
"But this is a program designed to offer our families more general information about a variety of issues and concerns," he said.
The participating agencies offered information regarding health and wellness, behavior and mental health, summer recreational opportunities, education and financial assistance.
"Often as educators, we'll get questions from families about where they can get assistance on a particular issue," Budy said. "They know the type of help or information they need, they just don't know where to go to get it."
The community-resource rally aimed to serve as "one-stop shopping" for families, he said.
In addition to inviting Holt Crossing families, organizers distributed information about the event to the elementary schools that feed into Holt Crossing and the middle schools Holt Crossing students will attend, Budy said.
More than 400 people attended the rally, which included performances featuring the Holt Crossing Mini-Rockets and Central Crossing High School flag teams, the Central Crossing Jazz Band and visits with Brutus Buckeye and Crew Cat.
"The mascots were an important part of the event, along with the entertainment, because we wanted to make this a fun night for families, not just a dry night of getting information," Budy said.
Budy headed up a team of Holt teachers and staff members that spent several months organizing the event, once it was approved by the district and principal Tyler Winner.
"As a school, we try to do as much as we can to help our families when they have a question about something," Winner said. "We know there are entities out there that can help them. The families may know about them, but a lot of times they don't know where to turn."
"It's always different, depending on the family," he said. "Our teachers get a lot of questions from families, and I do as principal."
Families and students also could win prizes through a raffle during the rally.
"We had some local businesses and restaurants donate prizes for the raffle and several of our teachers created specially themed gift bags as prizes," Budy said.
A family movie night gift bag contained DVDs and popcorn while a family picnic night bag featured supplies and provisions for a picnic or camping trip.
There was no cost to enter the raffle; families received an entry each time they visited one of the agencies participating in the rally, Winner said.
"We wanted to make sure that families actually make connect with these agencies, because that's what this night was all about," he said.
The turnout was "spectacular," Winner said.
"It's very gratifying to see our families respond like this," he said. "Hopefully, they are getting a lot of good information about resources in the community that can help them."
The attendees included Holt Crossing fifth-grader Alaina Nicholson and her father, James.
"I wanted to come because I really wanted to win the book prize bag in the raffle," Alaina said. "I love to read, so I entered that raffle -- and I won it!"
James Nicholson said the event was a valuable prize for families.
"It's great to have information about so many different groups in the community available at one event," he said. "It's a fun night for the kids, but as parents, we're able to get a lot of good information."
Budy said he would like to see similar events expand to other district schools.
"Perhaps this is something we can organize to happen once a month at a different school," he said. "It's really turned out even better than I could have imagined."
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