`New Hermitage after-school program will model West Hill`

The success of West Hill Ministries has inspired the Hermitage After-School Happening. The new program, to start in September, will be open to fifth graders and will be patterned after what’s offered by the four West Hill churches in Sharon, said the Rev. George Wareham, associate rector of one of those churches, St. John’s Episcopal, and president of the Christian Associates of the She-nango Valley.

The program will be sponsored by the Christian Associates, with the support of the Hermitage School District. The site will be Hickory United Methodist Church, located between the Shenango Valley Mall and Hickory High School and across Route 18 from Hermit-age’s elementary and middle schools.

One difference in Hermitage is that the site is not in a residential area like Sharon’s West Hill, where children walk from school to the program. Rev. Wareham said chil-dren will be bused from school to the church, where parents will pick them up.

He said the strength of West Hill Ministries lies in the teaching of the scriptures. “People feel like they are on track when they begin to hear the Word and they begin to live out that Holy Word. Bells start to ring inside our spirit and we know we are on the right track.” The program will focus on fifth graders and include arts and crafts, music, positive role modeling, posi-tive peer relationships and decision-making, Rev. Wareham said.

“Fifth grade is when problems start to happen,” he said. “It’s a time of change in their development and they are moving into a new identity. We want to help them to form their new identity along with the positive role modeling and so forth.”

Rev. Wareham said the hope is to expand the program to sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders as the years go by.

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Updated May 21, 9999
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