Partnerships Benefit Businesses, Schools

In high school, Carrie Miller felt unsure about what she wanted to do for a living.

Now the banquets manager at Cavanaugh’s Inn at the Park - like hundreds of other business people in Spokane - is reaching a helping hand back to students.

“I want students today to know they have the whole world ahead of them,” Miller said.

With Miller’s help, the Inn at the Park has become a partner in education with North Central High School. It’s one of 100 partnerships that exist between local businesses and neighborhood schools.

In the last couple of years, the decade-old partnership program has reached almost every school in Spokane County. Many schools have several business partners.

“It’s good advertising for us, but it goes beyond that,” said Gary Glennie, whose Northside Super Save Drug Center is a partner of Salk Middle School. “We’re letting parents know we’re interested in their family lives.”

Partners write a contract stating what they’ll do for each other. The idea is that schools and businesses can’t function without each other.

Schools need business people to role-model the value of education for students. Business people want to make sure students are getting a strong work ethic and sense of responsibility.

“Being involved with schools is a great way for us to have a positive influence in our community,” said Mike Davis, Tidyman’s chief financial officer.

“We can reinforce the linkage between what kids are learning in school and what they will need to know when they become adults.”

How businesses reach the lofty goal of helping kids is very down to earth.

A nutritionist from Tidyman’s shares healthy eating tips with children in the Nine Mile Falls, Mead and Spokane school districts.

Jean Davis of U.R.M. Stores Inc. sends one of the food distributer’s trucks to Arlington Elementary School every couple of years. Kids get to climb inside and work out math problems related to its gas mileage, volume and size.

Lidgerwood Elementary students’ pictures, hanging in the North Division Taco Time, let students know that people value them, principal Cris Welch said.

“These relationships are becoming more and more involved,” Welch said. “It’s wonderful.”

With older students, business owners are finding that they can help foster responsibility and provide incentives for doing well in school.

“Business people can project what students will need to know when they reach the job market,” said Todd Homa, career counselor at the Spokane Skills Center.

Holy Family Hospital gives $50 savings bonds to incentive programs at Garry and Salk middle schools that recognize students for getting good grades or meeting good behavior standards.

“In the overall scheme of things it’s not a lot of money to Holy Family Hospital,” said chief operating officer Ralph Gamon. “The dollars are more significant in getting the kids a good start in life.”