URI undergraduates buddy up with Providence school children

KINGSTON, R.I. — April 7, 1999 — University of Rhode Island undergraduates paired up with Providence school children recently for an afternoon of drawing pictures, reading and listening to a storyteller. It was all part of URI’s Book Buddy program, sponsored by the Feinstein Center for Service Learning. The Book Buddy program is designed to motivate inner city children to stay in school and attend college. The youngsters, all students at the Community Preparatory School in South Providence, had never been on a college campus before. The Book Buddy program is just one of several community service projects underway at the Feinstein Center for Service Learning, created in 1995 from an endowment donated by the philanthropist Alan Shawn Feinstein. Other projects include Rhode Island Reads and the Clearinghouse for Volunteers. For More Information: Kelly Thomas, 874-2568 Ann MacDonald, 874-2116