Helping Children at Giffen Memorial Elementary School

A bright future includes a strong educational start! This isn’t exactly news, but it takes the support and commitment of many to make education accessible to all. Giffen Memorial Elementary School is located in a low income area in South Albany where the student population is primarily African-American and immigrant. Many tutors are required to work with the students during the school day. Westminster Presbyterian Church is encouraging members to join with Albany’s First Presbyterian Church in their partnership with Giffen Memorial Elementary School in Albany’s South End to: Tutor in the Classrooms at Giffen Memorial Elementary School Put tutors in classrooms to help teachers during the school day for 1-2 hours. This occurs during the school day for 1 to 2 hours and the tutors help in any way that the teacher requests. This can be working with an individual student or small groups within the classroom or out of the classroom. The teacher provides the work. To volunteer, print out and complete the two pages on http://www.albanyschools.org/templates/Volunteers/2012-13/Volunteer.application.1-13.pdf Mail this completed applicaion to: Fiona Thompson, Volunteer Coordinator, 700 Washington Avenue, Albany NY 12203 Wizard’s Wardrobe: An After-School Tutoring Program Participate in Wizard’s Wardrobe, an after school tutoring program. Each tutor works with the same student for 1 1/2 hours once or twice a week. In order to participate fully, every tutor will participate in a training session. For more information or an application and instructions on how to sign up for Wizard’s Wardrobe, contact our Church Office, Westminster member, Nancy Ost or First Presbyterian Church member, Debbie Fagans. Another Way to Support Wizard’s Wardrobe If you are doing any Amazon shopping and would like to support the Wizard’s Wardrobe, please consider visiting Amazon by first going to and finding “South End Neighborhood Tutors” and then placing your order. Amazon will donate 0.5% of the sales to our program. Before coming to the Capital District in 1968, Nancy taught elementary school in Ohio. Once here, she continued teaching for a year in the Guilderland district. She became intricately involved in the natural foods movement in the late 60s and early 70s and was one of the founders of the Honest Weight Food Coop. In 1976 she joined the teaching staff at the Albany Free School in downtown Albany where she remained for 26 years. Since retiring from there, she has continued her love of teaching with a class or two at the Harriet Tubman Democratic High School in Albany. Nancy has been a Giffen Team volunteer for the past two years and finds it very rewarding.