Provo Peaks Elementary School holds Family and Community Night
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- A D.J. encourages kids to dance and shout at the Provo Peaks Elementary School Family and Community Night on Thursday, March 10, 2022.
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- Sydney Turner, parent advocate at Family Haven, at the Provo Peaks Elementary School Family and Community Night on Thursday, March 10, 2022.
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- Free books given away at the Provo Peaks Elementary School Family and Community Night on Thursday, March 10, 2022.
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- A representative from the Monte L. Bean Life Science Museum shows a tarantula to students at the Provo Peaks Elementary School Family and Community Night on Thursday, March 10, 2022.
Provo Peaks Elementary School held its Family and Community night Thursday in an effort to connect families with local resources in a fun and interactive way.
Local organizations including Safe Kids Utah, United Way 211, Y Serve, Family Haven and more were present to provide information, treats and prizes to families and community members.
“I feel like a lot of times people don’t really realize what there is available to them, and so we wanted to be able to bring in families to say ‘hey we have these great resources that are here to help you,'” said Dallas Brooks, the Title 1 coordinator at Provo Peaks.
Provo Peaks is a Title 1 school for students in preschool through sixth grade. According to Brooks, the school serves students who live in low socioeconomic status, have severe special needs, refugees, English language learners and other minority groups.
Sydney Turner, a parent advocate at Family Haven, believes that events like this help her organization make meaningful connections with the families that they want to serve.
“The services that we offer are really catered to families in our community, so we feel like these types of events are so important so we can get our name out there, we can get our services out there so that we can help as many families as we can,” Turner said.
Provo Peaks faculty and staff provided free books to students, and teachers created educational games that students could take home to play with their families.
“Especially because of COVID and things that have happened, you know we’ve kind of drifted out and gone to being more secluded, and we’re trying to bring families back together and help them to connect with the school,” Brooks said.
Each student in attendance received a punch card that they filled up by visiting teachers and booths around the school. The punch cards were entered into a raffle at the end of the night giving students the opportunity to win prizes, including movie theater tickets, Utah Jazz gear, and even tickets to see Shawn Mendes in concert, which were all donated by local businesses and community members.
“We have been floored with all of the support that we’ve gotten,” Brooks said. “We’ve had so many people donate, we’ve had so many people and community members say that they’ll come in and help us, we’re just really impressed with the community being willing to help the students at our school.”
