Wayne Community College’s Associate Degree Nursing (ADN) Class of 2022 has provided books to community child care providers.
The students collected nearly 160 children’s books and flash card sets to donate to sites at which they practice skills: the college’s child care center and WAGES Head Start.
“This correlates with their courses this semester in maternal and pediatric nursing,” Dr. Adam Combs, WCC’s clinical nursing instructor and simulation coordinator, said of the community service project.
“The partnership between the child care center and the nursing students has remained strong over the years,” said WCC Public Services Department Chair Jodi Baker. “The collaboration has helped students practice teaching handwashing and other healthy activities, and the children have benefitted from learning new skills.”
The students chose to give books to WAGES Head Start because the senior nursing students participate in clinical observation there, Combs said.
“We have had the collaboration with the Nursing department for some time now to support both of our programs, with the nursing students receiving experience in the pediatric field and the Head Start staff benefitting from the support from the nursing students assisting in the classrooms,” explained WAGES Head Start/Early Head Start Health/Disabilities Services Manager Wanda Becton.
“These types of collaborations are what make Wayne County so unique and help us to stand out among other programs, especially in the Head Start world,” Becton said.
The women expressed how appreciative they were for the donations.
“Our children were so excited to receive the big box of books that the ADN students brought! The children’s parents even stopped by to peruse the big selection, and some sat down in the rocking chairs to read some of them to their children,” Baker said. “When children have books that they can enjoy, they are transported to places all over the world, and their imagination explodes.
“Because Head Start is widely known for its literacy-rich classrooms and emphasis on early childhood literacy, the books donated by the students are most welcome and right on time,” said Becton.
Becton said that some of the books that are appropriate to the age groups WAGES serves will go to its centers throughout the county and others will be added to family gifts given to the children it serves and older siblings where appropriate.
WCC’s Associate Degree Nursing Program is a limited-admission, five-semester program that prepares students to practice as registered nurses (RNs).
