Danielle Storey leads a line of bundled-up kindergartners through the halls of Central Elementary School, to an exit where parents wait by their cars to pick them up. She makes eye contact with or waves to every parent to ensure each child is safely on the way home – an important duty in a school of 580 students.
It’s about 3:30 on a snowy afternoon. She’ll be back here for a 5:30 p.m. yoga class she helped start, then off at 7:30 p.m. for her older daughter’s hockey game.
You’ll see her every Thursday here at Central, where daughter Taylor is a fifth-grader, and other weekdays helping out at Kenowa Middle School, where Madison is in seventh.
Powered by Parents is a series highlighting the parents, grandparents and other family members who give their time in schools to help students and teachers do their best.
This on top of her full-time job as a graphic designer and her duties as co-president of the Central PTO, along with Michele Dykstra. She was recently appointed to fill a vacancy on the Kenowa Hills Board of Education, and also serves on the Central School Improvement Committee and Kenowa Hills Education Foundation.
Sure, it’s a busy day that for her starts around 5 a.m. But Storey genuinely enjoys volunteering, especially here at Central, which she attended when it was a middle school
“I like being in these buildings,” Storey says. “I liked school. I thought at one time about being a teacher, but this is good enough. Watching how hard those teachers work motivates me and inspires me to want to do more. It needs to be a community effort.”
She does plenty to help Central’s teachers, from PTO meetings and Facebook postings to organizing fundraisers, including one with Biggby Coffee that runs until Christmas. Principal Cherie Horner says Storey helps recruit other parents to take on school projects, and does everything from tutoring to cleaning up.
“Anytime I say I need a volunteer for something, she’s like ‘I can do that,’” Horner marvels. “She truly wants a school (where) all the kids get the same opportunity her child does.”
Being an active school parent is hard work, Storey says, but is worth it “just to make our kids’ educational experience a little better.”
Besides, interacting with chatty students brings rewards, she says after seeing off the kindergartners: “You can’t leave here without a smile on your face.”
