Students take part in educational programming put on by Medalta. The Historic Clay District got a boost of $10,000 for school programming thanks to Saamis Rotary. -- SUBMITTED PHOTO
mcranker@medicinehatnews.com@mocranker
The Historic Clay District’s education programming has gotten a boost thanks to Saamis Rotary.
The money comes from the local club as well as its national parent organization.
Medalta executive director Mike Onieu applied for the money and says the education program is a big priority for the organization.
“The education program requires a lot of support and we felt this was a good fit,” he said.
The education program usually hosts classes from schools around the city at the History Clay District.
“Whole classrooms and their teachers would come down to Medalta and do their school curricular learning here,” said education co-ordinator Wendy Struck. “We tie in Medalta learning when we’re working with the classes, whether it’s history, math, science, art or language arts – it’s a great program.”
With the world facing the COVID-19 pandemic and classes just getting up and running, Struck is not expecting too many classes to sign up for this right away.
“Our classes are on hold right now, but we’re hoping to get going with some after school programming,” she said. “We’d like to get some youth programming going on the weekends as well.
“We’re going to keep in touch with the schools.”
Onieu says it is a tough year for the education program, but it will continue to get better.
“This will allow us to enhance our program,” he said. “This is a very supply-intensive program and we need to have a lot of fun things for the kids to do.
“Part of the money will also go toward the safety supplies necessary to make this safe for COVID-19.
“We want this to be as safe as possible.”
Onieu says there has not been much funding for Medalta this year, which is partly by design.
“When COVID-19 first happened, money was naturally going to charities and organizations on the front line,” he said. “We chose not to fundraise for a while, because we knew we weren’t the top priority.
“Shortly we’re going to be launching a campaign to start raising a bit of money.”
The education program is around eight years old and has seen more than 1,000 kids pass through it.
