KROGER'S SUPPORT FOR INNER-CITY SCHOOL RUNS DEEP

Mark Hamstra

INDIANAPOLIS -- Kroger Co.'s commitment to education and its community focus are exemplified by its work with a public elementary school in one of this city's low-income communities.

The local Kroger division has "adopted" Daniel Webster School #46, providing a wide range of resources to help the students improve their attendance and their academic performance.

The School 46 project was started in 1985 by a single store manager, Bob Colbey, "and it just developed from there," said Jeff Golc, manager of public affairs for the Kroger division and the coordinator for the School 46 activities.

About three dozen Kroger stores in the Indianapolis area donate resources, help raise money, and their employees contribute their time in a wide range of initiatives to help the school. The efforts include helping students with reading, contributing money for scholarships and organizing several special projects.

Among those projects were the construction of an aquatic center at the school and the building of a new house across the street for a needy family.

Although many supermarkets work with local schools as a means of creating goodwill with the families in their communities, the Kroger venture in Indianapolis is unusual in that all the Krogers in the market work with that one single school.

"We partner only with School 46 because we feel that if we partner with other schools, it will dilute our ability to help them on their [standardized test] scores and help them with their reading," said Golc. "We wanted to just focus and do well in one place."

Although most of the activities that Kroger is involved with at School 46 revolve around improving academic performance and attendance, the company spearheaded the construction of the school's Lashonna Bates Aquatic Center, which opened in October 1996. Kroger coordinated fund-raising efforts with 38 other businesses that garnered what Golc estimated to be about $4.5 million to build the pool, which includes an array of amenities like slides and sprinklers, along with a three-lane lap swimming area.

In the past, students traveled to other nearby pools for swimming instruction as part of the physical education curriculum.

In addition to its availability for community use and its employment in swimming instruction, the pool also is used as a reward for students who achieve certain attendance and academic goals.

"They use it as an incentive for kids, because they love to go in swimming," said Golc. "They use it as a reward to those kids who continually do well."

A few years later, Kroger helped build a new house for a needy family with children at the school, replacing an abandoned house across the street. Kroger coordinated a group effort that involved the neighborhood association and the Parent Teachers Association to tear down the abandoned house, build a new one and place a family from the school in the new home.

"Every year we try to take it up and do more," said Golc. "We do projects with them at the zoo, we do projects at the children's museum, we do reading in the classroom. We have all kinds of different people who are very committed to this project."

All 28 Kroger stores in Indianapolis are involved in the effort, along with another seven in the suburbs that have chosen to get involved. Each teacher at the school is assigned two store managers, who make themselves available for various real-life educational services.

For example, students who are learning about fractions and decimals can go to a store and have someone in the butcher department explain how fractions are used to determine the price of meat.

"A number of kids are turned off by school, and they don't see the relevance of what they have to learn," Golc said. "So what we do is we take them to the meat department, and say 'OK, if somebody wants a half a pound of beef, and it's $4.96 a pound, how much should we charge them?'

"So we begin to show them the relevance. We show them how learning math helps them directly in a job."

Kroger also organizes career fairs at which people from various other professions come to the schools to provide information about their jobs in an effort to inspire the students.

Another educational endeavor that Kroger sponsors is a field trip to Washington each year for the fifth graders, which caps a year of class work in legislative affairs.

The annual "Government in Action" trips, which have been taking place for about 10 years, are funded completely by donations, Golc said.

Although the school is only for children in kindergarten through fifth grade, Kroger funds college scholarships that the students can save for the future. Several students have earned $2,000 to $3,000 for college through the program, which began in the 1988-89 school year, according to Golc.

Each semester, 20 students are awarded $500 scholarships. To qualify, they must be on the honor roll, have good citizenship and have no more than one absence per grading period. Each student in the Super Star Project also must complete an assigned project, which is judged by teachers, parents and Kroger employees. The money is held in escrow and earns interest until each student begins college or trade school.

Golc declined to reveal the total amount that Kroger contributes to the school, although he described it as "significant."

The effort has garnered Kroger considerable recognition. The partnership has twice been mentioned by the current governor of Indiana, Gov. Frank O'Bannon, in his state of the state address, and was also featured as one of the "Thousand Points of Light" in former President George Bush's effort to promote charitable activity by corporations and civic and religious organizations.