With the beginning of each school year, there is always an opportunity to learn more about campus organizations and activities with Welcome Week. Though Welcome Week was mostly virtual this year, it still showcased many student organizations, including the Student Association for Young Children.
The SAYC is a group that focuses on creating programs for early childhood development and education. The organization is open to students, staff and faculty members. They work closely with the Little Bucs childcare program, volunteer at local schools, participate in Relay for Life and host a family fun night for the community every spring semester.
It is great that ETSU has a service-based organization dedicated to specifically help children in the region. We need to give back to our community in as many ways as possible, but I think children deserve a sort of special focus. Though it is cliché, children are the future of our society, and creating a better future for our community starts with focusing on the well-being of our local children. Children struggle with such a wide variety of hardships nowadays, especially with the current pandemic creating more problems.
Many children are doing online or hybrid school, which isolates them from their peers and affects their education. This situation is even worse for students with bad home lives. With so many things affecting children in today’s world, it’s more important than ever to give kids the resources they need to help their mental health and education.
We need to take steps to ensure the next generation does not see long-term negative effects from today’s circumstances. It is great that there are ETSU organizations like the SAYC that focus on specifically helping children in the community. SAYC is helping improve children’s lives in the Tri-Cities area, and I cannot wait to see how they adapt their methods to best help children during these hard times.
