By Antonio D. French
Filed Thursday, October 20 at 2:46 PM
Contributed by Anne Nabor
For the past 10 years, Micah House students from St. Louis University have produced an annual Halloween party for the students of Sherman Elementary Community Education Center. Micah House is an four-year integrated living and study program in social justice. Students are required to fulfill community service as part of the program. Throwing the party for Sherman students, thereby providing a safe place for them to celebrate Halloween, was one of their service projects.
For those ten years, the Community Education Center paid for the party supplies. Each CEC is given $25,000 per year to spend on serving the needs of its community. The CEC councils in the past have decided how to spend this money.
This fall the CEC was removed from Sherman to the nearby Mullanphy Biological Sciences Investigative Learning Center magnet school. Micah House students were told this week that the $300 annual allocation for the party will not be available this year. All funding will now be reserved exclusively for programming at Mullanphy. Few neighborhood children attend Mullanphy. There are no plans for a Halloween event there. No explanation was given for the move or the exclusive reservation of the funding.
The CEC Council chairperson resigned in protest over the move to Mullanphy last spring, and council members have not been given their customary opportunity to vote on the allocation of funds.
Meanwhile, community members are trying to raise the $300 from private sources so the party can go on.
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