Palm Beach Day Academy students giving back at YMCA

A new program partnering middle school students from the Palm Beach Day Academy with after-school students at the YMCA teaches important lessons to all of those involved, organizers say.

Younger students enrolled the West Palm Beach after-school program get help with homework and reading comprehension, while older students enrolled in the island school learn about the importance of giving back, said Cynthia Sulzberger, who helped create the program and has a daughter at the Day Academy.

“The Palm Beach Day students are so engaged,” said Sulzberger, who earned a master’s degree as a reading specialist. “The kids are so happy to have that kind of attention. A lot of kids in this program come from homes where they are probably not read to a lot.”

Sulzberger started the program in fall with Cynthia Kanai, development director at the school.

Every other Monday, between 15-25 students in seventh, eighth and ninth grades from Palm Beach Day spend about three hours at the YMCA helping elementary-age students there with homework and reading to them, Kanai said.

“The connections they’ve made have really compelled them to keep going,” she said. “It’s a great way to plant seeds and have them sprout.”

Now, the students are looking to grow those sprouts — and help the YMCA kids more consistently, Kanai said. They’d like to buy a dozen noise-canceling headphones and iPads, then load them with recordings of themselves reading popular books and short stories.

To help pay for the equipment, the students pitched their proposal to the Palm Beach Philanthropy Tank, a group that offers money to students in seventh grade and beyond with ideas for community-betterment projects.

“We started talking about how we could make something more consistent,” Kanai said. Two students worked on the 10-page proposal — which explains the budget, inspiration and goals for the project — over the Thanksgiving break.

Resident Bill Meyer is one of four “philanthropist-investors” involved with the philanthropy tank. He has looked over these students’ proposal, as well as others submitted to the group.

“We’ve got a lot of good proposals this year,” Meyer said, adding that it’s great to see students in Palm Beach get involved in giving back at such a young age. “I think that many of them see the activities of their parents, who are really philanthropic, and think, ‘How can I get involved and give back?’”

The students will find out if they move onto the next round in the philanthropy tank competition later this week. The final live event will be March 8 at The Maltz Jupiter Theater.

This sort of giving back is part of the culture at the Day School, Kanai said.

Helping others, she said, “that’s really a part of who we are and how we want our students to go forth in their lives.”

-Posted from the Palm Beach Daily News, Written by Gregory Cox, Daily News Staff Writer