Sunday, March 23, 2008 9:58 PM CDT
More than 100 child care professionals participate in recognition event at SBLHC
By NATHANIEL WEST, Staff Writer
nwest@jg-tc.com
MATTOON — Jenny Carter-Alvis has been involved in a family owned day care for more than 15 years, but she still needs the occasional shot in the arm, so to speak.
She got it Saturday.
“It rejuvenates you,” she said. “It just gives you that encouragement you need — just the reminder that what we are doing is one of the most important things there is. The thing that is most precious in our lives, we are entrusted with.”
Carter-Alvis was one of more than 100 early child care and childhood professionals registered for the annual Early Childhood Recognition event at Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center on Saturday. Day care and preschool teachers were honored for their professional development efforts.
Participants also heard from motivational speaker and educator Clyde Self, whom one participant referred to as “the educator’s Jeff Foxworthy.” Self said there are few jobs with greater significance than watching over other people’s children.
“Sometimes they feel like their role isn’t important, when it is important,” said Self, a longtime teacher at Mattoon Middle School who also teaches education classes at Eastern Illinois University.
The event was sponsored by the EIU School of Family & Consumer Sciences Child Care Resource & Referral, and the Spirit of Illinois Association for the Education of Young Children.
“We do this every year to recognize the hard work child care providers do all year long,” said Tammy McCullough, child care specialist for Child Care Resource & Referral. “It’s kind of a motivational thing. And they get a time to connect with other people in the field.
“We want to do everything we can to help them keep doing their jobs, keep doing them well.”
Members of the Illinois Network of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies Professional Development Programs received special recognition Saturday, although most of the participants at the event said they came away with a renewed sense of purpose.
Susan Richardson, a 34-year veteran of child care who operates an in-home facility in Charleston, said she was reminded Saturday that “children will remember what we do the rest of their lives.”
She said she has been invited to previous students’ graduations and weddings, and now is caring for their children.
“We are important to every child every day,” Richardson said. “What we do they try to emulate, so we should always put our best foot forward.”
Marcy Anderson, a preschool teacher at St. John’s Lutheran School in Mattoon, said she walked away from the Early Childhood Recognition event “knowing that what I do is very important, that I am touching their lives every day, but they touch my life too.
“I think it’s the best job on Earth.”
Contact Nathaniel West at nwest@jg-tc.com or 238-6860.
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