IU East News
The Baxter Neighborhood Center welcomed a pack of Red Wolves to its community on Feb. 19.
Nine members of the Indiana University East volleyball team and Red Wolves coach Charlie Brown ran a volleyball clinic during "Friday Fun Night" at the Baxter Neighborhood Center For Service-Learning.
IU East players Jessica White, Kristen Mahoney, Madison Qualkenbush, Courtney Flory, Breezy Strete, Kristin Waechter, Victoria Hicks, Lauren Crump and Akeyta Mayes demonstrated the basics of serving, passing and setting for more than 20 Richmond area youngsters.
Click here to view photos from the clinic.
"I love kids, and so teaching them how to do something I love was fun," said White. "They were quick learners, and some of them were pretty good for being so young!"
The Baxter Neighborhood Center is a service program under the direction of the Indiana University East Center for Service Learning.
Ange Cooksey, director of the IU East Center for Service-Learning, established the Baxter Neighborhood Center in 2005 as a cooperative project between IU East and the Richmond community.
The center provides a community gathering place and focus point for a neighborhood that previously had Baxter Elementary as its anchor.
The center moved into the former Baxter Elementary School about a year ago. The center attracts youngsters from the Baxter neighborhood, but any youngster is welcome to attend the center's activities.
A staff of IU East service-learning students offers after-school activities such as Friday Fun Nights, tutoring on Wednesdays, special programs in the summer, plus some "Super Saturday" activity days.
"The programs are specifically designed to improve the quality of life for children," Cooksey said. "The best thing we do is pair college students with children."
IU East's volleyball players also ran a volleyball clinic for the Baxter youngsters last February.
"It gives us an opportunity to get kids interested in sports," White said. "It's good to start them young and teach them the fundamentals so they can have athletics as part of their future."
For more information about the Baxter Center Neighborhood Center or the IU East service-learning program, contact Cooksey at (765) 973-8438 or visit www.iue.edu/servicelearning.
