Making The Connection Campus Kids Program Helps Students At Logan Neighborhood Elementary Schools And Gonzaga

Over gingerbread and hoops talk, the unlikely friends bonded.

Jason Innes, the 19-year-old in a polo shirt from San Francisco, and Darryl Jenkins, the 10-year-old in red T-shirt from the Logan neighborhood.

They talk Shaq. They talk about Darryl’s absent brother. They talk Penny Hardaway. They talk about Darryl’s homework.

In a college dorm rec room, among foosball tables and battered couches, they build the walls of a gingerbread house and build a friendship.

The pairing is the spawn of a partnership between Gonzaga University and Logan neighborhood elementary schools, the Campus Kids mentor program that advocates say is quietly changing the lives of many Spokane school kids.

Troubled, below-average kids go straight-A. Attendance is better. Completed homework becomes a weekly passport to the exciting Gonzaga campus and new, cool friends.

“It’s a natural bond,” said Allison Drago, a 20-year-old special education major. “The kids love the attention. And they let us be a kid again.”

Started more than a year ago, the partnership matches college students with kids from Logan and Stevens elementary schools.

The elementary students are carefully picked: underachievers with the glimmer of potential. Many are from impoverished homes, although that’s not a prerequisite.

It’s then up to the college students to encourage and inspire during weekly, supervised visits to the Gonzaga campus. Homework is emphasized during a game of touch football or a play.

All but one of the pairings in the last year have held. A few got so attached they kept in touch over the summer break.

“We can chart attendance, we can chart academics, we can chart other things, but you can never chart how important a mentor is,” said Stevens school liason Marlys Page. “It’s an intangible benefit.”

Most parents love the program, says Page and Logan teacher Doug Joslyn. Parents have protested when their children were dropped from the program this fall.

“I think it helps with some of the burden the parents have,” said Joslyn.

The Spokane School Board marveled at the program and debated expanding it during a presentation last month. Sheridan Elementary inquired, and Stevens and Logan officials want to expand beyond the current 45 students.

Ask the kids and they shrug off the program, like cool fifth-graders. “I don’t know, it looks fun,” said Cory Smith, 11.

But Smith has made a dramatic turnaround since entering the program a year ago, improving his grades, attendance and attitude, his teacher told mentor Kevin Van Vleet.

He made a special effort to turn in a paper in order to stay eligible for a Campus Kids visit. The paper was about Van Vleet, a 20-year-old political science major from Great Falls, Mont.

“You should see how excited these kids get,” said Page. “It starts Wednesday morning. They say, ‘It’s Campus Kids day, right Mrs. Page?’ Then in the lunch line: ‘We get to go to Campus Kids today.’ At 3 p.m., they are lined up at the door.”

On the Gonzaga campus, mentoring is hip. Students say talking to the kids - largely poor, some from parents in gangs - puts their sociology classes into context.

“We realize as Gonzaga students how lucky we are, and then there’s this neighborhood right around us,” said Drago, from Bend, Ore. “It’s really opened our eyes … to the issues that are right in front of us.”

“It’s our chance to get away from college,” said Van Vleet.

More than 170 students applied for the 45 positions. “When was the last time you had to turn away volunteers?” asked Gonzaga’s Sima Thorpe, director of the program.

A grant from the state Higher Education Coordinating Board pays most of the tab for the program, and the Spokane School District pays transportation costs.

The grant ends this year. Thorpe is hitting up other organizations, including the school district.

Money, age, background dissolved one day last week, as Darryl and Innes, the San Francisco marketing major, patched together their graham-cracker gingerbread house.

The four walls were up, and a gummy bear was guarding the door. Innes said gingerbread houses reminded him of his sister.

“I didn’t know you had a sister. You never told me that,” said Darryl. Innes smiled, happy his friend wanted to know.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo