Apollo students are giving back
After taking a year off because of COVID-19 concerns, Mike Dicke, a robotics and computer
numerical code instructor at Apollo Career Center, wanted to get students involved in the local community. So the program’s partnership with Big Brothers/big Sisters of West Central
Ohio - something that had been active yearly from 2006 until last year - is back (after a year and one-month delay).
Every other Friday Apollo students travel to Freedom Elementary School in Lima and
spend an hour mentoring kindergartners through third-graders.
“The kids spend about an hour…help them with homework, kind of work them through
some things and playing games and just be mentors to these students,” Dicke said.
Some of his students went through similar challenges the children at Freedom are currently experiencing, and it’s Dicke’s hope that the younger students can learn they’re not alone and that it was possible to overcome life’s obstacles.
“I want them to see that there is hope; things do get better and that there’s great opportunities awaiting them out there,” he said.
The student-to-student partnership came about by former student Corey Meyer, who volunteered his own time at Big Brothers Big
Sisters. He then told the his instructor at
Apollo the program was something Apollo students needed to do.
“The following year Big Brothers Big Sisters came in and we started the process of having
juniors and seniors [in the manufacturing, engineering and technologies class] start this mentorship,” he said.
There aren’t any seniors volunteering this year, but every one of the 14 juniors participating volunteered for it, and that includes three Wapakoneta students - Lydia Brigham, Carter Bauer and Xavier Ickes.
“I really enjoy the fact of being able to go and give kids another chance,” Ickes said. “At home I have a big brother that I personally have worked with and I always love to be there for
him and I always want to give a chance to a child that could possibly be stuck in a rough
spot.”
For Bauer, he believed children at that
age and in those situations may have lost joy and hope.
Brigham, who babysits and used to work at a summer camp,
said doing this felt natural.
“I’m really good with kids, especially kids that have behavioral
issues cause I’m very patient,” she said. “Aside from the fact
that I really like kids, I felt like it was almost an obligation to be able to go there and help a kid out.”
Besides helping out, the experience also
benefits Apollo students.
“It’s a good resumebuilder,” he said. “And it allows my students to give back to the community a little bit
in a non-traditional way.”
He actually instructs his students to include the experience when they’re creating their first resumes.
“I’ve had employers ask me, ‘what did you do during Big Brothers/big Sisters,’” he
said. “I explain how we did a mentoring
process, how we worked with young
children of various ages.”
Dicke - who himself participated as a junior and senior - has led the program for five years.
“I really enjoyed it while I was participating in the program,”
he said. “It was something that I looked forward to on Fridays when we got to do Big
Brothers Big Sisters. It was good to feel like we were giving back.”