Friends and Supporters of the Robert Crown Center-
As the Chair of the Board of Directors of the Robert Crown Center for Health Education I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you all for your past support. As you probably know, there have recently been some exciting changes here at the center. We determined that the time was right to switch to a 100% in school delivery model, to sell the building that we’ve called home for over 40 years and to complete dramatic updates to our programming to be more compelling and engaging to our audiences. All of this in the same year that we educated our six millionth student!
Under the leadership of our new Executive Director, Barb Thayer, the Robert Crown Center transitioned from a once popular field trip destination to delivering our health education programming in schools. While this was not a dramatic change for our team of educators who were already delivering roughly 75% of the programs in the schools, it was a change to some of the schools that had the trip to the center on their calendar year after year. We’re happy to announce that this change was not only supported but seen as a dramatic improvement, allowing the schools to save money and a substantial amount of travel time.
With this shift in delivery, there was no need for us to keep our large and mainly underutilized building on Salt Creek Lane in Hinsdale. After only a couple of months on the market, we were able to come to an agreement with another long-standing Hinsdale institution, the Hinsdale Humane Society, to purchase our building. We’re ecstatic that a building with our rich history will continue to serve the community for years to come. In addition, we have worked with members of our local Rotary Clubs as well as international members of Rotary and McMillen Health in Fort Wayne, IN to send many of our exhibits to support a new health education center in India. RCC is having a global impact on health education!
Lastly, the focal point of the Robert Crown Center is the programming that we deliver to roughly 80,000 students each year. Kris Adzia, the Director of Education, and our team of Health Educators have worked tirelessly to update our programming. Starting with the Science Behind Drugs programs, they have incorporated a blended learning approach that incorporates pre-test, post-test and e-learning all housed on a Learning Management System (LMS.) Through the LMS, we are becoming a better partner for schools with more engaged students as well as assessment data that teachers can use to show the growth in student learning. Beginning this summer, the staff will tackle the re-vamp of the sex education programming, including our puberty, Life Begins and Teen Sexual Health programs.
As you can see, it’s been quite a year. We are very excited about the opportunities that lie ahead of us and hope that we can count on your support as we deliver programming to the next six million students.