Peekskill Rotary Adopt-a-Class Program

Peekskill Rotarians have adopted Roxanne Rickett’s (right rear) fifth grade class at Hillcrest Elementary School. Rotary members help students learn about their trades and professions. On this day, former President Howard Copeland (left rear) briefed the students on cameras and photography.

The Adopt-a-Class program grew out of an address given by Mrs. Roxanne Rickett to the Peekskill Rotary Club in 1990, describing her career as a sixth-grade teacher at the Woodside Elementary School. During her talk, she made reference to an old African proverb which says that “it takes a whole village to raise a child,” and out of this came the fundamental idea underlying the Adopt-a-Class program.

The class “adopted” by the Rotary Club was Rickett’s sixth grade at Woodside School. Fifteen years later, the club’s adopted class is her fifth grade class at Hillcrest Elementary School. Nearly every week during the school year, a Rotary member spends a one-hour school period with the adopted class, familiarizing the students with the member’s trade or profession, describing a typical workday, and detailing the preparation in terms of both education and experience needed to enter that field.

With a diverse membership of small business owners, dentists, accountants, financial consultants, marketers, school administrators, real estate agents, manufacturers, bankers, clergy and other professionals, the Peekskill’s Rotary club is able to offer students insights into a broad range of career opportunities.

Occasionally these sessions take the form of a field trip to a place such as the Paramount Theater or the Field Library, or to commercial enterprises like Westchester Technologies, Inc. or the Bank of New York. Time is always set aside for questions from the students, and they never fail to make good use of it. These experiences will give them a broader and deeper appreciation of the “whole village” in which they are growing up.

At the end of each school year, Rickett and her students join the Peekskill Rotary Club for lunch at one of its regular meetings. It's our opportunity for club members to express their appreciation for the enthusiastic participation of the class and its teacher.