Foster project works just 'grand'

Date: 01/09/2004

Edition: Wisconsin
Section: Tri-state
Page: A3
Story type: Current

Photo Caption: Mary Noesen, 75, of Dubuque, rocks the cradle of 8-month-old Madelyn Michel while working Thursday morning at Small Wonders Learning
Center in Asbury. Mug - Hank
Schroeder
Mug - Hazel Koeller

Photo Credit: Ben Plank


Foster project works just 'grand'
by MARY NEVANS-PEDERSON



ASBURY, Iowa - "Bye Grandpa Hank." A dozen tiny hands waved goodbye to Hank Schroeder as he left a classroom at Small Wonders Learning Center in Asbury.
In the infants room, Grandma Mary (Noesen) slowly rocked a wide-eyed baby boy.
Neither Schroeder nor Noesen are real grandparents to any of the tots at the center, but one would never know by watching the two generations interact.

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To find out more about the Foster Grandparent Program, call Cheryl Walser Kramer at 563/588-3980.




"To the kids, they are not surrogate grandparents, they are their real grandpas and grandmas," said Victoria Kieler, director of the center.
The Foster Grandparent Program of Project Concern has been pairing senior citizens with children for 32 years. The seniors work in schools, day care and Head Start centers, summer camps and other sites in Dubuque and Jackson counties. The seniors must be at least 60 and be able to work a minimum of 15 hours per week. If they meet certain income guidelines they are paid an hourly stipend.
The 50 or so seniors currently in the program range in age from 64 to 88. Only five are men. Schroeder, of East Dubuque, Ill., has been a foster grandpa for six years. At Small Wonders, he plays games, reads aloud, dances, calls bingo and pushes swings for the pre-kindergarten kids. He is there four mornings per week and the youngsters ask about him when he is not.
"I can't sit around and be idle," said Schroeder who likes "everything"
about his role as foster grandfather.
Noesen, 75, has worked in the infant room for nine years.
"I love the babies," said Noesen, of Dubuque, who feeds, rocks, plays with and consoles the infants. "I do all those kinds of things a grandmother would do."
Kieler said the foster grandparents "have skills and gifts we don't have. The children feel their calmness, serenity and security. They are invaluable to our program."
Hazel Koeller, 87, of Dubuque, has been a foster grandparent for 22 years at Eisenhower School. For much of that time, she has helped Diane Herrig, who teaches third- and fourth-grade special education students.
"She is the most patient person I know and goes above and beyond what you would expect. She's a peach," Herrig said of Koeller, who has a simple explanation for her affectionate attitude.
"I love them the same as my own," said Koeller, who has 36 grandchildren and 42 great-grandchildren.
Cheryl Walser Kramer is the program director for the foster grandparent program, funded mostly with federal dollars and partly by the United Way and other entities. She said both sides benefit from the relationship.
"The seniors get the satisfaction of helping a child improve and the children form a relationship with a 'grandparent' that many of them don't have close in their lives," said Kramer, who recruits, trains and oversees the senior volunteers. That job is getting harder to do.
"It's a challenge to find folks. Seniors want to volunteer, but the 15-hour-per-week requirement is a daunting commitment to some," she said.


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