Objects in each box include pencil grips, slant boards, pencil weights, stress balls, noise-reducing headphones and adaptive scissors, pencils and paper.
The organization presented the boxes, as well as special seats, timers, weighted vests and two iPads, to the school Wednesday morning to help kindergarten and first-grade students in the school’s 35 classrooms.
“The focus is for those students who are really struggling with learning how to write, learning how to hold a pencil correctly, things like that,” said Principal Mary Brophy. “Teachers will have extra resources readily available to them to start putting some of those interventions into place as quickly as possible.”
If an object works, teachers then can relate to colleagues, occupational therapists and parents which object was used and how it helped a student learn, according to Maria Bowling, an occupational therapist at the school.
“We can then transfer it on to when they go to a different school and say this is what has helped this child, this has kept them off an IEP (individualized education program), this is all they really need and they can function beautifully,” Bowling said.
Founded in 2011, Paige’s Princess Foundation is named after Paige Alessandro, a 6-year-old Wyandot student who died in 2010. The non-profit provides grants to pediatric patients with life-long disabilities, which helps their families with additional therapeutic services or equipment that are often not covered through insurance.
“It means everything to be able to serve the community that took care of Paige and was such an important part of her life,” said Heather Alessandro, Paige’s mother. “It’s a tribute to her legacy that we can put a little something in all of the classrooms at her school to remember her by.”
Early interventions are key to student success, said John Mattingly, the school’s assistant principal.
“We want to get things while students are being evaluated,” he said. “By having these kits readily accessible in the classroom and training staff and teachers so they feel confident how they use these interventions, the idea is maybe we can improve the student’s pencil grips and their handwriting or their fine motor (skills). It’s a neat resource.”
Alessandro said she feels “very blessed” by the foundation’s donation.
“Being a young organization, it’s somewhat difficult to get additional funding,” Alessandro said. “I feel like they really took a chance on us and believed in us.”
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